The record books you have to keep
They are not the accounts: they are something else, and they are compulsory even if you keep accounts under the Código de Comercio. Which ones apply to you depends on whether you are a business person or a professional and on which regime you are in.
Which ones apply to you
The list is not the same for everyone, and that is where the problems start: plenty of people keep the VAT ones and forget the IRPF ones, which are different.
Invoices issued
Every invoice issued, with its taxable base, rate, VAT and the customer's NIF. It is the book that feeds the 303 and the 390.
Invoices received
Your suppliers' invoices, numbered in the order they were received. Without entering them, that VAT is not deductible.
Capital goods
Compulsory if you have to adjust deductions. Goods of €3,005.06 or more, for the four years following the year of purchase, or nine if they are property.
Intra-Community transactions
For certain dispatches and work on goods, and for call-off stock arrangements.
IRPF income and expenses
Those on estimación directa also keep their own books, which are not the VAT ones even though they look alike. The exception is a business person on estimación directa normal with a commercial activity, who keeps accounts under the Código de Comercio.
Provisiones and suplidos
Only professionals keep this one, and it is the most forgotten of the five.
Screenshot of the ERP: Which ones apply to you
A business person and a professional do not keep the same books
It is the distinction that causes the most confusion, and it is in article 68 of the IRPF Regulations, not in the VAT ones. The VAT books — invoices issued, invoices received, capital goods and certain intra-Community transactions — are separate and almost everybody keeps them.
- A business person on estimación directa simplificada, or on normal without a commercial activity, keeps sales and income, purchases and expenses, and capital goods.
- A professional keeps income, expenses, capital goods and, on top of that, provisiones de fondos and suplidos, under any form of estimación directa.
- A business person on estimación directa normal with a commercial activity keeps accounts under the Código de Comercio and is therefore released from the IRPF record books; the VAT ones, by contrast, let nobody off.
- On módulos you have to keep invoices and supporting documents, keep a capital goods book if anything is being depreciated, and keep a sales or income book for activities taxed by turnover.
- And under the SII the books are kept directly on the Tax Agency's E-Office.
How they have to be kept
The VAT Regulations are explicit and it is worth reading them word for word: the books are kept «con claridad y exactitud, por orden de fechas, sin espacios en blanco y sin interpolaciones, raspaduras ni tachaduras» — clearly and accurately, in date order, with no blank spaces and no interpolations, erasures or crossings-out — with the pages numbered sequentially and the amounts in euros.
In practice, that means a record book is not corrected by deleting. It is corrected by leaving a trace. A spreadsheet with a cell overwritten does not meet that requirement, however tidy it looks.
The entry deadlines count too: as a general rule, before the period's filing deadline ends; and there are cases with a short seven-day deadline.
The Tax Agency's standard format
The Tax Agency publishes a standard format for the VAT and IRPF record books. It is voluntary — unless they ask you for it — but it has one concrete advantage: it lets you import the data into their assistance service for form 303.
Cairos exports in that format, as well as to CSV and Excel. It is one of those things you do not miss until the day a formal request arrives asking for a year's books.
Try it with your own data
Free plan forever, no card needed.
Frequently asked questions
The books are already done
If the invoices and the expenses are in, the books come out of them. There is no second job.
No lock-in · VeriFactu included · Support in Spanish