← User guide

CZ/SK Payment Symbols (VS/KS/SS)

Variable, constant and specific symbols on invoices, payments and bank statements, and matching incoming payments by them.

What it is for

A Czech or Slovak payer identifies what they are paying with numeric payment symbols rather than with a free-text reference:

Odoo itself has only the free-text Payment Reference. This module gives the three symbols their own validated fields, fills them in for you, carries them into payment QR codes, payments and bank files, reads them back out of bank statements, and — with one of its add-ons — matches incoming payments to invoices by the variable symbol.

It depends on Odoo's account only, so it works on Community and Enterprise alike and does not need the rest of the Czech/Slovak localization.

Legal background

The symbols are a banking convention, not a statutory requirement for ordinary commercial payments, in either country:

• Czech Republic. The symbols used to be defined by ČNB decree No. 62/2004 Sb. That decree was repealed by § 7 of decree No. 169/2011 Sb., which does not define them. They live on as the banks' convention and in the payment instructions of payees that require them, such as the tax and social-security administrations.
• Slovakia. In a SEPA credit transfer the symbols travel in the payer's reference as /VS…/SS…/KS…. Since 18 March 2024, following a recommendation of Národná banka Slovenska, banks increasingly prefix a question mark: ?/VS…/SS…/KS… (VS and SS up to 10 digits, KS 4). This module reads both forms.

Because a variable symbol is unique only per issuer — two suppliers can both number an invoice 2026001 — the matching below never trusts the symbol alone when it knows who paid.

Setting it up

Accounting → Configuration → Settings, block Czech / Slovak Payment Symbols:

On invoices, credit notes and bills

The three fields sit right after Payment Reference: on vendor bills in the main part of the form, on customer invoices and credit notes in the Other Info tab.

• Customer invoice. The variable symbol is filled from the digits of the document number, keeping the last 10: INV/2026/00042 gives 202600042. The constant symbol comes from the company default.
• Customer credit note. Its own number, or the original invoice's symbol, as set above.
• Vendor bill. The variable symbol is taken from the digits of the Bill Reference — normally the supplier's invoice number, which is also the VS they expect. If the supplier asks for a different VS, overwrite it.

Every field stays editable. Anything other than digits, or a value longer than 10 / 4 / 10 digits, is refused when you save.

Customer receipts (out_receipt) show no symbols, because Odoo shows them no Payment Reference either.

Payment QR codes

When an invoice prints a payment QR code, its symbols are handed to the QR generator, so the code the customer scans carries the VS, KS and SS as separate values. The Czech and Slovak QR formats are provided by account_qr_code_qr_platba_cz (QR Platba), account_qr_code_pay_by_square_sk (PAY by square) and account_qr_code_payme_sk (payme.sk).

Payments

The Pay button (the Register Payment wizard) copies the symbols onto the payment it creates when every document being paid has the same value. A grouped payment over invoices with different variable symbols gets none — the recipient's bank could not match it to one invoice anyway. The symbols appear on the payment form after Memo, editable.

Bank statements

When a statement line is created — by a bank connector or a file import — the symbols are filled in from, in this order:

1. values the bank connector supplies explicitly;
2. the connector's transaction details, under the usual key names (variable_symbol, variableSymbol, vs, variable_code, and likewise for KS and SS);
3. tokens in the label, the reference and the notes: VS:123, VS 123, /VS123, /VS/123, ?/VS123/SS/KS. CAMT files often carry the symbols only in the reference, which is why that is read too.

A zero symbol (SS0) counts as none. The variable symbol is also written at the front of the label (123 - original label, never twice), so Odoo's standard matching can see it. Lines that existed before the module was installed are not re-read.

Matching incoming payments by variable symbol

Installing one of two add-ons adds an exact variable-symbol pass to automatic bank reconciliation. Both install themselves when their engine is present:

• l10n_cssk_payment_symbols_ee — for Odoo Enterprise bank reconciliation;
• l10n_cssk_payment_symbols_oca — for the OCA reconciliation widget (account_reconcile_oca) on Community.

They share one rule. A statement line with a variable symbol is compared with the open, posted documents of the same company whose symbol is the same, ignoring leading zeros (0042 = 42):

• If the bank line already knows the payer (from the account number), only that partner's documents are considered.
• If exactly one document carries the symbol, that is the match.
• If several do, the one whose open amount equals the payment is taken — but only if exactly one fits, and only in the company currency. Two documents with the same symbol and the same amount (two sale journals can both issue …00001) are left for you.
• Otherwise nothing is matched and the line is left for you. The pass never guesses.

Advance invoices (proformas) are matched by variable symbol in the same pass when sale_order_advance_invoice_payment_match is installed.

Differences between the two:

Payment orders

With OCA payment orders (account_payment_order) installed, l10n_cssk_payment_symbols_payment_order copies each document's VS, KS and SS onto the payment lines created from it. The domestic bank-file exporters — account_abo (Czech ABO) and account_multicash — write them into the file as structured symbols. It has no screen of its own.

SEPA / ISO 20022 credit transfers

With Odoo Enterprise's ISO 20022 export, l10n_cssk_payment_symbols_iso20022 adds a choice to each bank journal, CZ/SK Symbols in pain.001:

Check with your bank before relying on either. Banks differ in what they parse back into symbols, and the Slovak convention described above writes ?/VS…/SS…/KS… — letters and digits without a slash between them, VS–SS–KS order — which neither option produces. Send one test payment and look at how the payee's statement shows it.

Limitations

• The variable symbol is derived from the document number. A sequence with a year prefix yields symbols like 202600042; if your customers are used to a different form, adjust the sequence or edit the symbol.
• Automatic matching is exact and conservative: no fuzzy matching, no foreign-currency multi-document matching, nothing across companies.
• Symbols are read from statement lines when they are created, not later.