An association is not taxed like an S.L.
The program should not treat them the same either
Almost every invoicing program assumes you sell something to make money. When what you run is an association, a cooperative or a club, half the screens are no use to you and the other half are missing. Cairos has the modules that are missing.
Legal forms with a page of their own
Each with what the law requires of it, its books, its taxation and its forms.
Associations
A members' register, fees by direct debit, donations with their certificate, grants that have to be evidenced and a Corporation Tax that almost nobody knows whether they owe.
Cooperatives
Share capital that changes with every member, surpluses that have to be applied under your region's own law, and departures that are settled by rules of their own.
BetaSports clubs
Fees exempt from VAT, a bar that is not, sponsorships, federation licences and the compulsory insurance for each athlete.
BetaFoundations
The patronato, the Protectorado, the activity plan, annual accounts with a deadline and the duty to devote 70% of income to its purposes.
Comunidad de bienes
Income allocation among the co-owners and form 184.
Sociedad civil
With a commercial purpose it has paid Corporation Tax since 2016.
Sociedad limitada (S.L.)
The general case: invoicing, accounting and form 200.
The ones in grey work in Cairos today with the general modules, but they do not yet have a page of their own explaining their particularities.
The modules that do not exist in an ordinary ERP
None of these is sold separately or costs extra: they switch on from the settings when you say what kind of entity you are.
Members' register and fees
Joiners, leavers, recurring fees and their collection by direct debit with a SEPA file for the bank, with control of returns.
Donations and modelo 182
One-off donations and regular donors, certificates with the deduction each one is entitled to and the annual informative return.
Cooperative surplus
The mandatory reserve fund, the education fund and the cooperative refund, with the percentages from your region's own law.
VAT-exempt club fees
What carries VAT and what does not in a sports club: fees, the bar, sponsorship, ticket sales and the school.
Grants and evidencing the spend
What has been awarded, what has been received in instalments and what spend is still to be evidenced before the deadline runs out.
The notes and the annual accounts
The governing body, the minute book, volunteers with their insurance, and the accounts in the non-profit entity format.
What obligations each legal form brings
The table worth looking at before you incorporate anything, and the one that explains why a generic program falls short on half the rows.
| Legal form | Tax on profit | Books of its own | What almost no program brings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autónomo | IRPF, with instalment payments | Income, expenses and capital goods; professionals also keep provisiones de fondos and suplidos | — |
| Sociedad limitada (S.L.) | Corporation Tax | Código de Comercio accounting and annual accounts | — |
| Comunidad de bienes | None: it allocates to the co-owners | A single set of books per activity | Distribution by percentage and form 184 |
| Sociedad civil | Corporation Tax if the purpose is commercial; otherwise, income allocation | It depends on the regime: the two worlds | The classification of the purpose, which decides everything else |
| Association | Corporation Tax, unless three conditions are met at once | Members, minutes, an inventory of assets and true-and-fair-view accounting | Members' register, SEPA fees, donations and form 182 |
| Foundation | Corporation Tax; under Ley 49/2002, 10% on the non-exempt part | Patronato minutes, accounts for the Protectorado and the activity plan | Devoting 70% to its purposes, and accounting for it |
| Cooperative | Corporation Tax, with cooperative and non-cooperative results kept apart | Members and capital contributions, in two separate books | The mandatory reserve fund, the education fund and the cooperative refund |
| Sports club | Corporation Tax, with the same three conditions | Members, minutes and licences by season | Exempt fees against the bar and sponsorship, with their prorrata |
None of these rows is a recommendation: choosing a legal form depends on how much you are going to invoice, what the activity exposes you to and how many of you there are. What can be said is that the last four need things a generalist ERP does not have.
Why this is not just one more screen
Almost every invoicing program takes the same thing for granted: that you sell something, at a price, to make money. Everything else is built on that premise — the customer, the product, the margin, the profit — and it works for the vast majority of businesses.
The problem appears when what you run does not fit that premise. An association has no customers: it has members who pay a fee which is also exempt from VAT. A cooperative does not distribute profit: it applies a surplus with mandatory allocations before anything is distributed. A club collects three different things that are taxed in three different ways. And a comunidad de bienes does not even pay tax on its profit: it allocates it.
Faced with that, a generalist program leaves two options, both of them bad: force the data until it fits — calling a member a “customer” and a membership fee an “invoice” — or run half the administration outside the program, in the usual spreadsheet.
What changes in Cairos
You choose the legal form in the settings and from then on the program switches on the modules that belong to it and switches off the ones that do not. An association sees the members' register, the fees and the donations; a cooperative sees the share capital and the application of the surplus; an autónomo sees neither.
And none of those modules is sold separately or costs more: they are inside the ordinary plans, because they are not a premium range but what is needed to run that kind of entity.
Start with the free plan
No card and no expiry. The modules for your legal form switch on by themselves when you say what you are.