Accounting/OHADA Accounting

How to set up and run a company on the OHADA (SYSCOHADA) chart of accounts — company creation, control accounts, VAT, year end and the statutory financial statements.

This article covers what is specific to keeping the books of an OHADA company in Solace Accounting. Journals, customer and supplier accounts and bank reconciliation work as described in Accounting, and company creation in general is described in General Setup. Two companion articles go deeper: OHADA Chart of Accounts and Financial Categories and OHADA Financial Statements.

Scope and responsibility. The statements are produced from the accounts by fixed rules that follow the revised SYSCOHADA layout. They are a working aid: they do not replace the official filing forms, the notes that need information outside the accounts, or the review of a qualified accountant. Have them reviewed for your own country before you file.

1. Purpose and Scope

OHADA is the organisation for the harmonisation of business law in Africa. Its member states apply one accounting standard, SYSCOHADA, with a fixed chart of accounts (classes 1 to 9) and a fixed set of statutory statements. Solace Accounting supports it with a ready-made chart, French financial category names and a group of statutory reports.

Area	What Solace provides
Chart of accounts	The complete SYSCOHADA chart, classes 1 to 9, loaded when you create the company (see OHADA Chart of Accounts).
Financial categories	Every account is already tied to the category that drives the standard reports, and the category names are supplied in French.
Company defaults	Control accounts, financial year, VAT rate, invoice title and the first inventory group are set for an OHADA company (§2).
Statutory statements	Bilan (Actif and Passif), Compte de résultat with the soldes intermédiaires de gestion, Tableau des flux de trésorerie, and notes annexes (see OHADA Financial Statements).

Not included: the earlier (2000) layout of the statements and the TAFIRE; the notes that need information which is not held in the accounts (for example staff numbers, guarantees given and the narrative notes); and country-specific filing forms such as the DRC fiscal return. See §7.

2. Creating an OHADA Company

Create the company with the New Company Assistant (see General Setup). The steps that matter for OHADA are:

1. Start the New Company Assistant and enter the company name, address and registration numbers as for any company.
2. On the chart-of-accounts step, select OHADA cadre des comptes in the list of charts. The grid shows the accounts that will be created.
3. Check the financial period. For an OHADA company the assistant proposes a calendar year starting on 1 January, with 12 periods, and names the first period EXERCICE followed by the year. You can change the start date and the number of periods.
4. Finish the assistant. It loads the chart and applies the OHADA settings below.

Setting	Value for an OHADA company
Account numbers	The three-digit OHADA number followed by a three-digit sub-account. For example sub-account 001 of account 411 is number 4110001.
Customers control account	4110001 – Clients
Suppliers control account	4010001 – Fournisseurs
Retained income account	1210000 – Report à nouveau créditeur
Tax control account	4430001 – T.V.A. facturée sur ventes
Tax due account	4440001 – État, T.V.A. due
Employee control account	4220000 – Personnel, rémunérations dues
Standard tax type	VAT at 16%, the standard rate in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Set the rate for your country under Control Panel → Company Parameters → Tax Processing before you issue invoices, and check the current rate with your tax authority.
Sales document title	FACTURE (copies print as COPIE FACTURE).
Default inventory group	Sales 7010001, stock 3110001, cost of sales 6010001, purchase variance 6010001, other variance and adjustments 6030001.
Financial category names	In French (for example Capital social, Produits financiers), see Control Panel → Company Parameters → Financial Categories.
Accounting standard	The company is recorded as a SYSCOHADA company, which shows the États SYSCOHADA group of reports (§3).

What the assistant does not set up: the home currency, the journals and the bank accounts. Set the currency under Control Panel → Company Parameters before you post. For journals, create the ones your accountant uses (typically purchases, sales, bank, cash and miscellaneous operations) as described in Setting Up Journals and Entry Types. Opening balances are entered as in Opening Balances.

3. Existing Companies and the Statements Menu

The États SYSCOHADA group appears under Main Screen → Reports → Financials only for a company that Solace recognises as an OHADA company. That is a company created with the OHADA chart through the New Company Assistant, and also an older company whose account numbers use the three-plus-three layout and whose customers control account starts with 411. If the group is missing for a company that keeps its books to SYSCOHADA, check that the customers control account under Control Panel → Company Parameters is a 411 account.

Companies that already exist receive the new financial categories (Financial Income, Financial Expenses, HAO Income, HAO Expenses and Not on Financial Statements) automatically the first time they are opened after the upgrade.

4. Posting Rules That Matter

Rule	Why
Post to sub-accounts, not to headings.	An account that has sub-accounts is a heading, for example 411 Clients. Post to its sub-accounts, for example 411 sub-account 001. Solace refuses a posting to a main account that has sub-accounts.
Use the control accounts for customers and suppliers.	Customer and supplier transactions go through the customers control account 4110001 and the suppliers control account 4010001, so that the statements pick up the balances correctly.
Post every batch before printing.	The statements read the posted ledger only. Entries that are still in an unposted batch do not appear.
Keep to the OHADA numbering.	The statements place an account by its number. A new account numbered 622 is shown under “Services extérieurs”, a new account numbered 701 under “Ventes de marchandises”.
Do not post the result of the year yourself.	The Bilan calculates Résultat net de l'exercice from the income and expense accounts. If you also post the result to accounts 131 or 139, it is counted twice. Leave those accounts unused unless your accountant has closed the year outside Solace.

5. Year End

Run the Year-End Assistant (Control Panel → Tools) as described in General Setup. It creates the next financial period and carries the balance-sheet balances forward. The statements show the previous year next to the current year, so keep the previous year's balances unchanged after you have printed the statements.

6. First-Time Setup Checklist

1. Create the company with the New Company Assistant and the chart OHADA cadre des comptes.
2. Set the home currency and check the VAT rate under Control Panel → Company Parameters.
3. Create the journals your accountant uses.
4. Enter the opening balances and the customer and supplier balances.
5. Post the transactions, always to sub-accounts.
6. Post all batches, then print the statements from Reports → Financials → États SYSCOHADA and check them (see Checking Your Figures).
7. Have your accountant review the statements before they are filed.

7. Limitations

• The statements follow the revised SYSCOHADA layout (Acte uniforme relatif au droit comptable et à l'information financière, in force since 2018). The layout of 2000 and the TAFIRE are not produced.
• The lines are filled from the accounts by fixed rules (listed in OHADA Financial Statements). They have not been checked by a qualified accountant for every country. Review them for your own country before you file.
• Only the notes annexes that can be derived from the accounts are produced. Notes that need other information have to be prepared outside Solace.
• Country-specific filing forms are not produced, for example the fiscal return (liasse fiscale or Déclaration statistique et fiscale) of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Solace shows amounts in the company's home currency. The assistant does not choose the currency for you.

Glossary

Term	Meaning
OHADA	Organisation pour l'Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires, the organisation whose member states share the accounting standard.
SYSCOHADA	The OHADA accounting standard: chart of accounts, rules and statutory statements.
Bilan	Balance sheet, printed as two reports: Actif (assets) and Passif (equity and liabilities).
Compte de résultat	Income statement.
SIG	Soldes intermédiaires de gestion: the intermediate balances of the income statement (marge commerciale, valeur ajoutée, EBE, résultat d'exploitation and so on).
EBE	Excédent brut d'exploitation, gross operating surplus.
CAFG	Capacité d'autofinancement globale, the cash generated by the year's activity before changes in working capital.
TFT	Tableau des flux de trésorerie, the cash-flow statement.
HAO	Hors activités ordinaires: income and expenses outside the ordinary activities of the business (class 8).
Notes annexes	The notes to the financial statements.
Poste	A line of a statutory statement, identified by a two-letter reference such as AE or XI.

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OHADA Accounting · OHADA Chart of Accounts · OHADA Financial Statements