All entities that are registered in the public registers, or those that are required to do so by law, are obliged to publish their financial statements in the collection of documents. These are business corporations, institutes, foundations, associations or unit owners’ associations. This obligation is stipulated in Act 304/2013 on Public Registers, Section 66 and in the Accounting Act 563/1991, Section 21a, as amended.
Deadline for publication of the financial statements
The statutory deadline for the establishment of financial statements is 30 days from the approval of the highest body of the company and no later than 12 months from the balance sheet date. If the company has an audit, the financial statements must be published within 30 days after the auditor has audited the financial statements and also after they have been approved by the general meeting or the sole shareholder. The balance sheet date is the date on which the books of account are closed or the ordinary or extraordinary accounts are drawn up. This is usually 31 December of a given year. This means that the entity uses a calendar year or uses a financial year where the period is 12 months but starts on the first day of a month other than January.
Scope of published documents
Entities are required to publish financial statements to the extent required by Section 18(4) of the Accounting Act, i.e. in full or abridged form, including an auditor’s report if the entity meets the criteria for the obligation to have the financial statements audited.
If you are a micro and small entity, you shall publish a condensed balance sheet and an annex to the financial statements. There is no need to publish a profit and loss account. In the case of medium and large entities, we publish the full set of financial statements, i.e. the balance sheet, the profit and loss statement, the notes to the financial statements, the statement of changes in equity and the cash flow statement. For audited companies that are required to be audited, we publish the financial statements as audited by the auditor. We publish the annual report, the auditor’s report, the relationship report and the profit distribution decision.
It is the duty of the statutory body of the company to publish the accounts and the documents are filed in the Czech language.
How you can publish the financial statements
The ways in which the financial statements can be published are by request sent electronically to the locally competent registry court, preferably by data mail. It is also possible to use the web application „ePodatelna” or by email with an electronic signature.
From January 2022, companies have the option of completing a special attachment called application for transmission of financial statements to the collection of documents of the public registry when preparing and filing their tax return. This will result in the publication of the financial statements directly by the tax authorities. This method is particularly suitable for micro and small accounting units without audit obligations. As part of the filing of the tax return, they provide the tax authorities with all the documents and, through the request, ask the tax authorities to deposit them in the collection of documents.
Penalties for non-compliance
As the publication of financial statements is a legal obligation, companies face penalties for non-compliance. The penalty may be imposed by the tax authorities, who will assess a fine based on the Accountancy Act, Section 37a, of up to 3% of the net asset value. In addition to the tax office, the penalty is also threatened by the registry court, according to the Act on Public Registers of Legal and Natural Persons 304/2013 Coll., which provides for a fine of up to CZK 100,000. The court may also initiate proceedings for the dissolution of the company if the financial statements for two consecutive periods are not submitted for publication and at the same time the entity does not respond to the appeals of the registry court for correction. We recommend that you check whether you have complied with this obligation and, if necessary, rectify the offence as soon as possible.
How we classify accounting units
We have mentioned that financial statements are published to varying degrees depending on which category your company is placed in. The classification of accounting units is again found in the Accounting Act, where they are divided into micro, small, medium and large. Testing where your company belongs is usually done at the beginning of the accounting period. If an entity exceeds or ceases to exceed two values according to the given criteria on two consecutive balance sheet dates, the category of the entity will change from the beginning of the following period. The criteria are company assets, average number of employees and company turnover.
