What Romanian bookkeeping actually requires
A company registered in Romania keeps double-entry accounting records, in Romanian and in RON, under the accounting regulations approved by OMFP 1802/2014 and the Accounting Law 82/1991. That obligation attaches to the company, not to its shareholders: a Romanian SRL owned by a German group, a Cypriot holding or a single foreign founder keeps exactly the same books as one owned locally.
Group reporting does not substitute for it. A subsidiary that reports monthly to a parent under IFRS still needs a Romanian statutory ledger, because that ledger is what produces the VAT return, the corporate tax or micro-enterprise return, the SAF-T D406 file and the annual financial statements. In practice most of our foreign-owned clients run two views of the same data, and the work is keeping them reconciled rather than keeping them apart.
What the monthly service covers
The recurring work is the same every period, which is why it carries a fixed monthly fee rather than an hourly rate:
- recording sales invoices, purchase invoices, bank movements and cash;
- payroll journals and the reconciliation of salary liabilities, where we also run payroll and HR;
- fixed asset register, depreciation, prepayments and accruals;
- VAT computation and the periodic tax returns;
- the SAF-T file for the period;
- the monthly close: reconciliations of bank, receivables, payables, VAT accounts and intercompany balances;
- a reporting pack in English.
The annual financial statements and the year-end tax return sit at the end of the same cycle. Outside the fixed fee we keep the things that are genuinely one-off — first-year setup, restating earlier periods, written tax opinions, support during an inspection — and we quote them separately rather than absorbing them and repricing later.
How onboarding works, entirely online
Nothing in the process requires a courier or a visit.
- Scope and quote. We confirm the entity, the volume of documents, the VAT and reporting obligations that apply, and the reporting format your group needs. That produces a fixed monthly fee.
- Mandate and access. A written mandate lets us file to ANAF with our qualified digital certificate through the Virtual Private Space, and enrol the company for the national e-invoicing system.
- Data takeover. From a new company, an opening balance. From an existing one, the accounting database, the trial balance and the full filing history — which we reconcile against what was actually declared, not against what we are told was declared. If you are moving from another firm, the request list, the checks we run and what happens when the previous accountant goes quiet are set out on the page about changing your accountant.
- Mapping. Chart of accounts, VAT codes, document types and cost centres are mapped once to your group structure and reused every period.
- First closing. We run one period, deliver the reporting pack and adjust the format to what your controller actually reads.
- first daysThe month’s documentsThey reach us through the channel agreed at the start: shared folder, dedicated address or a direct export.
- next few daysPosting and reconciliationWe post, reconcile the balances and flag whatever is missing or unclear.
- before the deadlineReturns, cross-checkedWe prepare them, cross-check them against the books and send them to you for confirmation.
- on the deadlineFilingWe file through the Virtual Private Space with our own digital certificate, and you get the receipts.
- after the closeTrial balance and summaryYou receive the trial balance and a short summary of the month, in the language we work in.
The actual deadlines differ from one return to another — the 25th, the 30th or the last day of the following month. Build your company’s calendar to see exactly what falls when.
What you send us, and how
The document flow is deliberately simple, because complexity here is what makes accounting late.
Purchase invoices from Romanian suppliers are collected directly from the national e-invoicing system, so they no longer have to be forwarded at all. That single change has removed most of the month-end chasing for our clients — see RO e-Factura for how the system works and who it applies to.
Everything else arrives in one of three ways, whichever fits your organisation: a shared folder your team drops files into, a dedicated email address, or a direct export from your ERP. We take ERP exports in whatever structure they come in — SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Dynamics or a spreadsheet — because our tools map data rather than requiring a Romanian source system.
Bank statements are supplied as electronic files rather than PDFs wherever the bank offers them, which removes a whole class of transcription errors.
The one thing we ask for a fixed date is the cut-off. Documents for a period reach us by an agreed day of the following month; anything later goes into the next period, unless it is material.
The monthly reporting you receive
Every month, in English:
- a trial balance with English account descriptions mapped to your group chart;
- a profit and loss account and a balance sheet for the period and year to date;
- the tax position: VAT payable or recoverable, corporate income tax or micro-enterprise tax, payroll liabilities and their payment dates;
- a short commentary — what moved, what is unusual, what needs a decision before the next period.
For groups that need more than the statutory view, the same data feeds management reporting, budgets and cash-flow forecasting under financial advisory.
Who does the work
Two partners sign off what leaves: Silvia, chartered accountant, member of CECCAR, with over 17 years in Romanian accounting; and our tax consultants, licensed by the Chamber of Tax Consultants (CCF), members of CECCAR and ACCA, with more than 20 years of practice. They lead a team of senior accountants and tax consultants: every client has a dedicated file owner, and the partners review and sign the work. You talk to the people who do it, in English, Italian or Romanian — not to a ticket queue.
The tax questions that arise from bookkeeping — whether the micro-enterprise regime still applies, how a distribution is taxed, whether a cost is deductible — are answered by the same people who keep the books, which is the point of having both functions in one place. Where a question needs a written position, it goes through tax advisory.
