How to set up a new company with the assistant

What is it for?

The Set up the company assistant prepares a new company in a sequence of steps: who the company is, how it keeps its accounts, VAT, certified invoicing, banks, payroll and people. At each step it proposes values and explains why, with the legal reference. At the end it shows a summary of what it will create and only applies it after you confirm.

The assistant does not issue, number or communicate anything to the Tax and Customs Authority (AT). The series stay in draft, waiting for the validation code. It does not create journal entries either.

When to use it?

• When you start working on a new company, for example a new client of the accounting firm.
• When a company already exists in the database but does not yet issue certified documents: with the Starting point Review the current configuration.
• When the company comes from another program: with the Starting point Comes from another program (SAF-T import).

Where to find it?

• To create the company: Accounting › Configure › System › New client company.
• For the assistant, once in the company: Accounting › Configure › General › Set up the company.

Before you start

• You need the database administrator profile. The Accountant and Certified Accountant / Fiscal Manager profiles do not see the System group of the Configure menu. All the steps in this article were done with the administrator.
• Have at hand the tax number (NIF), the address, the legal form and last year's figures (turnover, balance sheet total and average number of employees). These decide the accounting framework and the VAT periodicity.
• The tax data the assistant asks for is what is registered with the AT. Confirm it with the company's certified accountant.

How to use it

1. Open Accounting › Configure › System › New client company. The New client company window opens.
2. Type the Tax number (NIF), the Company name, the Address, the Postal code and the City, for example 510000002, Empresa Nova Exemplo, Lda, Rua do Exemplo, 1, 1000-001 and Lisboa. Click Create the company and start the setup once only. The window warns that the company is visible only to you: other people are given access at step 10.
3. Wait a few seconds: the window stays open, with the button disabled, while the company is created. Then the assistant opens by itself, already in the new company (its name appears in the top right corner), at step 1. Identification, with the Starting point New company and the details you typed. Complete the CAE, the Commercial registry office, the Registration number and the Share capital. Consultar a empresa no VIES? (look up the company in VIES) comes unticked; if ticked, the assistant looks the company up in the European Union VAT database when you click Next. Pending validation on screen: the VIES response (the demo does not go out to the internet). Click Next.
4. In 2. Accounting framework, type the Turnover of the year, the Balance sheet total and the Average number of employees for the year given in Year of the figures, and choose the Legal form (Private limited company (Lda), Single-member private limited company (Unipessoal Lda), Public limited company (SA), Sole trader (individual entrepreneur), Cooperative, Association or foundation (non-profit) or Other). Year of the figures is filled in with the previous year. The assistant works out the Company size category and the Suggested framework: with €50,000.00, €30,000.00 and 2 employees, Microentity and SNC-ME (microentities). If the company sells or keeps goods, tick The company keeps stock and choose the Inventory method that appears: Permanent inventory (stock moves are booked as they happen) or Intermittent inventory (stock is counted and booked at the end of the period). The method is stored on the company record and decides how the year-end closing handles stock.
5. In Accounting framework, choose what the company uses: SNC (general regime), SNC-PE (small entities), SNC-ME (microentities), SNC-ESNL (non-profit entities), IFRS / IAS or Other. If you leave the field empty, Next accepts the Suggested framework: the field is filled in with it and the summary shows it as a change. Confirm the month in Fiscal year ends in (defaults to December) and the Day the fiscal year ends (defaults to 31). Click Next.
6. In 3. VAT, confirm Where the head office is (Mainland, Azores or Madeira region: it decides the VAT rates), answer Os clientes pagam tarde? (do customers pay late?) and Operações com autoliquidação? (reverse-charge operations?), and confirm the VAT return (the Suggested Periodicity comes from the turnover: Quarterly below €650,000.00; as with the framework, if you leave it empty, Next accepts the suggested one) and the VAT regime. The regimes and what they change are in How to fill in the company's tax details. Click Next.
7. In 4. Certified invoicing, confirm the Documents the company issues (ticked by default: [FR] Fatura-recibo, [FT] Fatura, [NC] Nota de crédito, [GT] Guia de transporte (incluindo as globais) and [RG] Outros recibos) and the Series of the year. In Where receipts are issued, choose A journal of its own for receipts or A bank journal of step 5: without a choice, the summary does not propose the receipts series. Ligar o modo de formação? (switch on training mode?) comes ticked and also creates a training series (see “Important notes”). Finance Portal credentials in the vault comes unticked in a new company and the Open the credentials vault button opens the vault: the password of the AT sub-user is stored there, never in the assistant. It is not needed to create the series or to issue documents; it is for communicating with the AT: How to connect fiscaldoo to the Tax Authority. The table below has the Establishment Head office, with the Code A, which goes into the name of the series. Click Next.
8. In the following steps, fill in what you already know and click Next (or Go to the summary); whatever is left empty changes nothing. 5. Banks: one line per IBAN, with the statement format. 6. Customers, suppliers and opening balances and 7. Assets: Excel or CSV files (opening balances stay in draft). 8. Salaries: the company, 9. Workers and 14. Salaries: size of the company: payroll data. 10. People and access: each person's profile. 12. Payment reminders and 13. Payment terms: the default collection rules (30 Dias).
9. In the Summary, read the O QUE VAI SER CRIADO E ALTERADO (what will be created and changed) table (columns What, Type, Now and After). Lines with Suggestion (not applied) are tasks to do by hand. If something is wrong, click Back.
10. Click Apply what the summary shows and, in the Confirmation window (“Apply the changes of the summary? Nothing is validated, numbered or sent to the AT.”), click Confirm.
11. The assistant moves to 15. Final check. Click Check everything now and read the Light of each Area (Tax Authority, SAF-T, VAT, Payroll, Signing key, Software certificate, Collection notices, Payment terms), with What was found and What to do.

Expected result

• The O QUE FOI FEITO (what was done) table has each line of the summary marked Done. In the example company: framework SNC-ME (microentities), Private limited company (Lda), VAT Quarterly, the journals and the A2026 series for invoice, invoice-receipt, credit note and delivery note, all in draft, and training mode. The receipts series only appears if you chose Where receipts are issued? at step 7: without a choice, the summary has the Where receipts are issued line with Suggestion (not applied) (“…Go back to step 4, choose one, and the series of RG will be proposed.”) and does not create a receipts series. The Finance Portal sub-user line also stays as a suggestion: it is done on the Portal das Finanças and in the vault.
• The areas that are not yet ready say what is missing. In the example company, Tax Authority: “Não há dados de acesso para o ambiente de testes da Autoridade Tributária…” (there are no access details for the Tax Authority test environment); SAF-T: blocking problems in the accounting, starting with the accounts' taxonomy codes; Payroll: the employer's details and the employees.
• Invoices cannot be issued yet: the series are in draft. The next step is to communicate each series and record the validation code: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT. The list of what is missing before you can issue is in How to prepare the company to issue certified documents.
• To go back to the assistant later, choose the company in the company switcher, in the top right corner, and open Accounting › Configure › General › Set up the company; in a company already applied, the button is Review again.

Demo video

The first video shows steps 1 and 2 and the start of step 3: opening New client company, typing the NIF, name and address, creating the company and seeing the assistant open in the new company, at step 1. Identification. It does not show the rest of step 3 (CAE, registry office, registration number, share capital and Next) or steps 4 to 11.

No telemóvel, rode-o para a horizontal e veja o vídeo em ecrã inteiro: o texto do ecrã fica legível.

Create a new company and open the assistant · 29 s · sem som, com legendas · legendas (WebVTT)

Transcrição

The second video continues in the same company, already at step 2. Accounting framework of the assistant (at step 1. Identification, the CAE, registry office, registration number and share capital were left empty and Next was clicked). It shows steps 4 to 11: the year's figures and the Legal form, with the Company size category and the Suggested framework (step 4); Next in the framework and in VAT, which keep the suggested values (steps 5 and 6); the documents and series of step 4. Certified invoicing and Go to the summary, without filling in steps 5 to 14 of the assistant (steps 7 and 8); the summary (step 9); Apply what the summary shows and Confirm (step 10); and Check everything now, with the Light of each area (step 11). It does not show The company keeps stock, choosing the framework by hand, Where receipts are issued or steps 5 to 14 of the assistant. In the demo, applying and checking took about 6 s and 30 s; in the video, those waits were cut.

No telemóvel, rode-o para a horizontal e veja o vídeo em ecrã inteiro: o texto do ecrã fica legível.

Apply the assistant and check the company · 33 s · sem som, com legendas · legendas (WebVTT)

Transcrição

Important notes

Training mode comes switched on

Ligar o modo de formação? (switch on training mode?) comes ticked at step 4. It creates a training journal and series: “Documents issued there are not real, are numbered apart and never go to the AT.” It is for practice. Never issue an invoice to a customer there. Untick the option if the company does not need training.

• The assistant's proposals (VAT periodicity, accounting framework, exemption under art. 53) are suggestions with the rule and the date it came into force, in the PORQUE É QUE O ASSISTENTE PROPÕE ISTO (why the assistant proposes this) table. The choice is yours, but a framework or periodicity left empty becomes the suggested one when you click Next: check them in the summary. The art. 53 exemption is never applied on its own. Pending validation by a certified accountant: accounting framework and VAT periodicity of each company.
• The assistant never gives the profile that files with the AT or the top administration profile, and does not let an auditor have a profile that changes data: those profiles are given by an administrator (How to give each user the right profile).
• The company's certified accountant is set separately: How to set the responsible certified accountant.

Common problems

“A company with tax number… already exists” when creating the company

• Symptom: in the New client company window, the Invalid Operation window says: “A company with tax number 510000029 already exists in this database. Nothing was created. Ask the administrator to give you access to it instead of creating it again.”
• Cause: the company was already created, for example by a second click on Create the company and start the setup while the first creation was still running, or by someone else.
• What to do: click Close and Cancel. Choose the company in the company switcher and open Accounting › Configure › General › Set up the company. If the company does not appear in the switcher, ask the administrator for access.

“Choose the accounting framework…” when clicking Next

• Symptom: at step 2, Next opens the Invalid Operation window: “Choose the accounting framework (or answer the figures above to get a suggestion). The SAF-T and the statements depend on it.”
• Cause: the Accounting framework is empty and the assistant has no suggestion, because the year's figures are zero. With figures, Next accepts the suggestion and does not show this window.
• What to do: click Close and choose the Accounting framework (step 5 of this article), or type the year's figures to get the suggestion.

Next does not move on at step 2 and the Inventory method turns red

• Cause: you ticked The company keeps stock without choosing the Inventory method. The screen shows no message: it only highlights the field.
• What to do: choose the method or, if the company has no stock, untick the option.

The new company's first invoice will not confirm

• Cause: before step 4 the company has no certified journal; after it, the series are in draft until they have the validation code.
• What to do: see the messages and the way out in How to issue a certified invoice, under “Common problems”.

The final check says “Not ready” for SAF-T

• Symptom: in the example company, “170 blocking problems in the accounting. First: 3 candidate taxonomy codes match this account's SNC code — choose one on the account ("Taxonomy" field) before generating”.
• What to do: click Open on that line to see the list. The taxonomy of each account is the certified accountant's choice. The invoicing SAF-T file is generated separately: How to generate the invoicing SAF-T file. Pending validation by a certified accountant: the taxonomy to choose for accounts with more than one candidate code.