← User guide

CZ/SK Partner Balance Confirmation and Set-off (Saldokonto, Zápočet)

Balance confirmations of a partner's open receivables and payables as of a date, with a PDF to countersign, and set-off agreements that clear mutual receivables and payables in the books.

What it is for

Two everyday documents of Czech and Slovak bookkeeping around open partner balances (saldokonto):

1. Balance confirmation (odsúhlasenie zostatkov / odsouhlasení zůstatků). A stored document listing a partner's open receivables and payables as they stood on a chosen date, which you print, send to the partner and mark as agreed or disputed. It is typically used at the year end to support the inventory of receivables and payables.
2. Set-off (zápočet). An agreement or a one-sided declaration that offsets what the partner owes you against what you owe the partner. On posting it creates the clearing journal entry and reconciles the invoices.

The module needs only Odoo's account and l10n_cssk_core, so it works in Community and Enterprise. It is available to users with Show Full Accounting Features or the accounting Administrator right; only an Administrator can delete records.

Legal background

Inventory. Neither accounting act requires a confirmation from the partner, but both require the company to verify its receivables and payables at the balance-sheet date, and for these the actual state is established by a documentary inventory (dokladová inventúra / dokladová inventura):

• Slovakia: § 29 ods. 1 and 2 and § 30 ods. 1 of the Accounting Act — the inventory verifies that the books correspond to reality, is carried out as at the day the financial statements are prepared, and liabilities, and assets that cannot be counted physically, are inventoried by documents.
• Czech Republic: § 29 odst. 1 and § 30 odst. 1 písm. b) of the Accounting Act — periodic inventory as at the moment the financial statements are prepared, liabilities and assets that cannot be seen are inventoried by documents.

A balance confirmation signed by the partner is a common piece of evidence for that documentary inventory.

Set-off.

• Slovakia: under § 580 of the Civil Code mutual claims of the same kind extinguish by set-off to the extent they cover each other, once one party makes a declaration aimed at set-off; they extinguish "okamihom, keď sa stretli pohľadávky spôsobilé na započítanie". § 581 ods. 2 excludes, among others, time-barred claims and setting off a claim not yet due against a due one; § 581 ods. 3 lets the parties set off even such claims by agreement. Between businesses the Commercial Code adds that only claims enforceable in court qualify (§ 358), that a claim not yet due cannot be set off against a due one unless the debtor is unable to pay (§ 359), and that claims in different currencies can be set off only when they are freely convertible, at the rate of the day they became capable of set-off (§ 362).
• Czech Republic: under § 1982 of the Civil Code either party may declare a set-off of mutual claims of the same kind once it may demand its own claim and perform its own debt; the claims extinguish to the extent they cover each other, with effect from the moment both became capable of set-off. § 1987 admits only claims enforceable in court and not uncertain, and § 1991 lets the parties agree a set-off that a one-sided declaration could not achieve.

That is the difference between the two modes of the module: a bilateral agreement (dohoda o vzájomnom započítaní / dohoda o započtení), signed by both parties, and a unilateral set-off (jednostranné započítanie / jednostranné započtení), a declaration delivered to the other party, usable only where the claims meet the statutory conditions. The module does not check those conditions for you.

Balance confirmations

Accounting → Customers → Balance Confirmations, then New:

Click Compute. The Open items tab is filled with every posted item on a receivable or payable account of the partner that was open on the as-of date: a payment or reconciliation dated after that date is added back, so a 31 December confirmation prepared in February still shows an invoice paid in January, at its full open amount on 31 December. Total Receivable, Total Payable and Net Balance (positive = the partner owes you) are computed from the lines.

The lines are a snapshot: they keep their own copy of the document number, dates and amount, so the confirmation stays as it was sent even when the ledger changes later. Click Compute again to rebuild it, which is possible while it is in Draft or Sent.

The workflow:

1. Print (shown once the confirmation is not a draft) gives the PDF Balance Confirmation (Saldokonto) with both companies, the list of items, the totals and two signature lines. Mark Sent sets the state to Sent; it does not send an e-mail — send the PDF yourself, for example from the chatter.
2. When the partner answers, click Agreed or Disputed.
3. If the partner disputes individual items, tick Blocked on those lines. They stay on the PDF, marked (sporné) and greyed, but are left out of the totals.

Generate Balance Confirmations (Accounting → Customers) issues them in bulk: choose the company, the as-of date, the type and optionally the partners — left empty, every partner with an open item on that date gets one — and the computed confirmations open in a list.

The PDF is in Czech or Slovak by the company's fiscal country, with English, and names the parties neutrally (Company and Partner), since a confirmation of payables makes your company the debtor.

An agreed or disputed confirmation is frozen: its lines cannot be changed and the record cannot be deleted, only cancelled. Reset to Draft unfreezes it. Confirmations are numbered SALDO/<year>/0001.

Set-off agreements

Accounting → Vendors → Netting Agreements, then New:

1. Choose the Partner, the Agreement Date, the Currency and the Netting Mode — Bilateral agreement or Unilateral set-off. Optionally choose the Clearing Journal; without one the first miscellaneous journal of the company is used.
2. On the tabs Receivables (pohľadávky) and Payables (záväzky), add the open journal items to offset, and in Amount To Offset how much of each. Only posted, open receivable and payable items of the agreement's partner can be chosen. A part of an item may be offset; the amount cannot exceed the item's open amount.
3. The agreement can be posted only when the receivables total equals the payables total (Is Balanced); that amount is the Netting Amount.

An item goes to the side given by who owes whom, not by the account: an open customer credit note is a debt you owe the partner and belongs on the payables side; a supplier credit note belongs on the receivables side.

The workflow differs by mode:

Create Netting Agreement (Accounting → Vendors) proposes one: choose the partner, date and currency, and it loads the partner's open items and allocates the largest balanced amount, oldest items first.

The lines can be changed only in Draft. The PDF Set-off (Zápočet), from the Print menu, is titled as an agreement with two signature lines, or as a notice of unilateral set-off with one.

Post first checks that every item is still open for at least the agreed amount (a payment may have arrived meanwhile), then creates a journal entry dated with the agreement date that credits each receivable and debits each payable by its amount to offset, and reconciles each item with its own clearing line, so partial offsets are kept exactly. Agreements are numbered ZAP/<year>/0001.

Foreign currency. In the company's currency any open item can be offset, at its booked amount. In a foreign currency only items in that currency can be offset; amounts are in that currency, the clearing entry is booked at the rate of the agreement date, and the difference to each invoice's own rate is booked as an exchange difference on reconciliation.

Cancel with reversal on a posted agreement removes the reconciliations and reverses the clearing entry, so every item is open again exactly as before. A posted agreement cannot be deleted.

Limitations

• The module does not check the legal conditions of a unilateral set-off (maturity, enforceability, exclusions) or the partner's agreement; you do.
• The clearing entry is dated with the agreement date and, in a foreign currency, booked at that day's rate. The claims themselves extinguish as of the moment they became capable of set-off (§ 580 of the Slovak and § 1982 of the Czech Civil Code), which the PDF states; if your accountant wants the entry on that day, set the agreement date to it.
• Both PDFs follow the company's fiscal country — Czech wording and DIČ for a Czech company, Slovak wording and IČ DPH otherwise — with English beside it. Have the wording checked before the first use.
• The confirmation PDF shows amounts in the company currency only.
• Mark Sent only changes the state; nothing is e-mailed.