All terms from A to Z

• Accident insurance (UVG) Mandatory for all employees. Occupational accidents are paid by the employer, non-occupational accidents as a rule by the employee.
• Accrual principle Expenses and income belong to the year they relate to in substance — not the year of payment.
• Accrued liabilities An expense of the current year not yet paid or invoiced — it sits as a liability on the balance sheet.
• Acquisition tax Tax on services from abroad that the recipient accounts for themselves in Switzerland — this affects every foreign software subscription.
• Advance payment Money received before the work is done. In the books it is not income but a liability — the work is still owed.
• AG (public limited company) Share capital from CHF 100,000, at least half of it paid in.
• AHV contributions Contributions to the first pillar, borne half by employer and half by employee and settled together with IV and EO in one deduction.
• Allowance for doubtful debts The value adjustment on doubtful customer receivables — an estimate of the loss, not a write-off.
• Annual accounts Balance sheet, income statement and notes — the closing the law requires.
• Anticipatory tax (Verrechnungssteuer) A deduction at source on dividends and interest — 35 per cent, reclaimable if declared correctly.
• Association A non-commercial purpose, statutes, a committee.
• Association accounting Associations often account for receipts and payments rather than by double entry, and add restricted funds on top.
• Auditor The external audit of the financial statements.

• Bad debt An invoice that will definitively not be paid.
• Balance sheet Assets set against capital at a given date.
• Balance sheet total The sum of assets — and therefore of liabilities and equity.
• Book value The value at which an item stands in the books — cost less all depreciation.
• Break-even point The turnover at which fixed costs are covered.
• Business assets What serves the business, as opposed to private assets.
• Business expenses All costs justified by the business. What is private does not belong — and gets corrected.
• BVG and pension fund The second pillar. Mandatory above an entry threshold, contributions graded by age, at least half borne by the employer.

• camt.053 The electronic account statement under ISO 20022.
• Cancellation invoice The full reversal of an invoice by a counter-document.
• Capital contribution principle Repayments of capital contributions are tax-free for the recipient — if they are shown in a separate reserve.
• Capital tax A cantonal tax on the company’s equity — it falls due even without a profit.
• Cash book The record of all cash movements with a daily balance.
• Cash discount A deduction for prompt payment — say two per cent within ten days instead of thirty.
• Cash flow statement Where the money came from and where it went — split into operating, investing and financing.
• Cash receipts Cash takings must be recorded completely and individually; where cash predominates, the Federal Tax Administration requires a cash book with a daily …
• Certificate of shortfall The official confirmation that enforcement ended without success.
• Client data in Switzerland A fiduciary handles data that is not its own: the payroll, turnover and accounting records of its clients.
• Collective agreement rules Collective agreements set weekly hours, supplements, holidays and minimum wages per industry, and they differ from one another.
• Commercial register The public register of companies. Registration establishes the business name, makes powers of representation binding — and becomes mandatory above a …
• Condominium ownership A property divided into shares under article 712a of the Civil Code is not managed like a rental object …
• Conflict-of-interest check Before accepting a mandate the firm must establish whether it has acted or is acting for the opposing party.
• Construction agreement The national collective agreement for main construction governs minimum wages, the flexible annual working-time calendar, supplements and travel time.
• Contribution margin What a product or job contributes, after its variable costs, to covering fixed costs.
• Cooperative An association of persons with a changing membership whose purpose is to further its members.
• Coordination deduction The amount deducted from salary before the pension fund insures it — because that part is already covered by AHV.
• Cost centre A delimited area to which costs are assigned — department, branch, vehicle, project.
• Cost plan BKP / eBKP The Swiss building cost plan groups construction costs into standardised classes …
• Credit note The downward correction of an invoice already issued — with its own number, not as a change to the old invoice.
• Creditor A supplier whose invoice is still open — the counterpart to the debtor, with approval and payment run.
• Cross-border workers Cross-border commuters are subject to their own tax and social-insurance rules depending on country of residence and place of work.
• Current account A running account on which claims and debts are set off against each other — per customer, supplier or bank.
• Current assets What turns into cash within a year: cash, bank, receivables, stock.
• Customs declaration Imports and exports are declared electronically to the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security …

• Data hosted in Switzerland Data residency in Switzerland is not a legal requirement but frequently a procurement one — especially for personal data and public contracts.
• Deadline control Monitoring of court and contractual deadlines with advance warning.
• Debit and credit The two sides of every account. Debit left, credit right — what they mean depends on the account type.
• Debt enforcement State enforcement of a money claim. It begins with the request for enforcement, not with the reminder.
• Debtor A customer who has not yet paid an invoice — and the ledger in which these open receivables are kept.
• Default interest The interest a debtor owes from the moment of default on a due monetary debt — five per cent a year by law, even where the contract provides for less.
• Delivery note The record of goods delivered — without prices.
• DENTOTAR framework tariff The dental framework tariff by which treatment items are billed.
• Depreciation The spreading of an asset’s cost over its useful life.
• Direct federal tax The federal tax on income and profit. For corporations a single rate on net profit.
• Dividend The distribution of profit to shareholders.
• Double-entry bookkeeping Every entry touches two accounts. From this arise the balance sheet and the income statement — and the system’s self-check.
• Driving and rest hours (ARV1) The ARV1 ordinance sets driving, working and rest hours for professional drivers, with a duty to record them.
• Dunning Multi-stage dunning runs with deadlines, fees and default interest, in the customer’s language.
• Duty to keep accounts Who must keep double-entry books and who need not: the threshold is CHF 500,000 of annual turnover.

• eBill The digital invoice inside the customer’s e-banking.
• EBIT Earnings before interest and tax — operating performance, independent of financing and tax domicile.
• EBITDA Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation — an approximation of operating cash flow.
• Effective method The standard variant: tax on turnover minus input tax actually paid.
• Employer’s payroll costs Everything the employer pays on top of gross salary — employer contributions, premiums, administrative costs.
• Equity What belongs to the owners: assets less liabilities.
• Equity ratio Equity in relation to the balance sheet total.
• Exempt supplies Turnover without VAT and without input tax deduction — residential letting, medical treatment, education, insurance.
• Expense flat rates Flat rates for meals, accommodation and vehicles differ by policy and by role.
• Expense policy An expense policy approved by the canton allows flat rates without individual receipts.
• Extra-mandatory pension cover Everything in the pension fund beyond the statutory minimum — voluntary and freely designed.

• Family allowances Child and training allowances, differing by canton, paid out by the employer and financed through the compensation fund.
• Fiduciary / trustee The external provider for bookkeeping, year-end, payroll and tax — and in many SMEs the actual user of the software.
• Final invoice The invoice that closes a job, with advances and interim invoices deducted.
• Financial year The period the accounts cover. It need not be the calendar year but lasts at most twelve months — except in the year of formation.
• Fixed assets What serves the business long-term: machinery, vehicles, property, software, holdings.
• Fixed costs Costs that arise regardless of volume: rent, salaries, insurance, software.
• Flat-rate VAT method Below the turnover threshold you may file using a flat-rate net tax rate instead of the effective method.
• Foreign currency Purchasing in euros or dollars, accounting in francs: you need a rate per document date, valuation at the balance sheet date and posting of the …

• General ledger All accounts with their entries — the ordered view of the same body of data the journal shows chronologically.
• General partnership Two or more natural persons, a joint business, unlimited and joint liability of all of them.
• GmbH (limited liability company) Its own legal personality, share capital from CHF 20,000, members publicly visible in the commercial register.
• Gross and net pay Gross is the agreed salary, net is what is paid out.
• Gross profit Turnover less cost of goods. What is left after purchasing, before your own costs.

• Heavy vehicle charge The performance-related heavy vehicle charge is levied by weight, emission class and kilometres.
• Hidden reserves Equity that does not appear on the balance sheet — because assets are valued too low or liabilities too high.
• Holiday pay in cash Holiday entitlement paid in money rather than days — permitted only for irregular employment, and then it must be shown on the payslip.
• Hospitality agreement The national collective agreement for hospitality applies to virtually every business in the industry and sets minimum wage, thirteenth month …
• Hospitality collective agreement The national collective agreement for hospitality governs working hours, supplements and minimum wages.

• IBAN The international account number. In Switzerland 21 characters, starting with CH and two check digits.
• Income statement Expenses and income of a period — the account that shows whether value was created or consumed.
• Input tax The VAT on your own purchases. Deductible if the supply is used for taxable purposes and the invoice is correct.
• Inventory count The physical count of stock at the balance sheet date — the basis for valuing goods.
• Invoice number The unique identifier of an invoice. It must be unambiguous and traceable — the law does not require an unbroken series.
• ISO 20022 / camt The bank supplies incoming payments as a camt file and the software reconciles them against open invoices.
• IV and EO Disability insurance and loss-of-earnings compensation — two contributions that appear together with AHV in a single deduction.

• Journal All entries in chronological order, complete and unalterable.
• Journal entry The smallest unit of bookkeeping: debit to credit, with amount, date and voucher.

• Liabilities All the debts of the business, short and long-term.
• Liquidation The orderly winding-up of a company: realise the assets, pay the debts, distribute the rest, deregister.
• Liquidity The ability to pay bills when they fall due.
• Loss carry-forward A loss offset against future profits — as a rule over seven years.

• Margin taxation For second-hand goods only the difference between purchase and sale is taxed — the case of the used-goods trade.
• Maternity allowance Fourteen weeks of compensation from the loss-of-earnings scheme, eighty per cent of salary up to a ceiling.
• MediData MediData is the common channel for electronic invoice delivery in healthcare.
• Membership dues Dues by membership category, batch invoicing to everyone, payment tracking and reminders.
• Multi-client capability A fiduciary runs many sets of books separately but in one interface: rights per client, switching without a fresh login, reporting across all of them.

• Net profit What remains at the end: income less all expenses, tax included.
• Non-consideration Money flows that pay for no supply — subsidies, donations, dividends.
• NPK bill of quantities The CRB standard item catalogue supplies the standardised texts used to tender construction work.

• Open items All invoices issued and not yet paid, ordered by due date — the basis for dunning and cash planning.
• Opening balance sheet The opening position of a financial year — identical to the closing balance sheet of the previous one.
• Overheads Costs that cannot be attributed directly to a single job — they are allocated by keys.
• Own use When a supply for which input tax was deducted is used for non-taxable purposes — the input tax must then be corrected.
• Owner’s salary What the owner draws for their work. In a sole proprietorship it is not a salary; in a GmbH or AG it is.

• pain.001 The payment order under ISO 20022 — the file a program uses to send supplier invoices to the bank.
• Part payment A payment that covers only part of the invoice.
• Partner required Some vendors sell and support exclusively through resellers.
• Pass-through item Money that merely passes through and does not belong to the business — neither income nor expense.
• Patient data in Switzerland Patient data is sensitive personal data, and physicians together with their auxiliaries are bound by professional secrecy under Art. 321 of the Swiss …
• Payment term The time the customer has to pay. Without an agreement an invoice is due immediately — «30 days» is custom, not law.
• Payslip The monthly statement of gross pay, deductions and net pay per employee — and the document the employee may demand.
• Pension (BVG) deductions Pension-fund deductions follow each fund’s own rules — coordination deduction, entry threshold, age banding.
• Pillar 3a Voluntary, tax-privileged private pension saving.
• Place-of-recipient rule For services, the place of supply is where the recipient is established — the rule for consulting, software and advertising.
• Prepaid expenses An expense already paid that relates to a later year — it sits as an asset on the balance sheet.
• Private share The private-use portion of a company benefit — the company car is the best-known case.
• Pro forma invoice An invoice document with no demand for payment — for customs, a visa or presentation, not for the books.
• Profit tax The tax on the net profit of a corporation — federal, cantonal and communal together.
• Provision An obligation whose amount or timing is still open — a provision is made for the probable case.

• QR reference The 27-character identifier on the QR-bill that ties a payment to its invoice.
• QR-bill Mandatory standard since the payment slip was retired.
• QR-IBAN A separate IBAN for payments with a structured reference.
• Quantity surveying The measurement of work actually performed, which in Swiss main construction is the basis of the invoice — by item and quantity, usually against a …
• Quotation A binding offer. If the customer says yes within the deadline, the contract is concluded — with no further step.

• Receipt Confirmation that payment was made. The payer may demand it — it is the proof of performance.
• Record-keeping ordinance The Swiss record-keeping ordinance requires ten years of retention, legible and verifiable at any time.
• Reduction of consideration Discounts, cash discounts and credit notes after the invoice — they reduce turnover and therefore the tax.
• Renovation fund The reserve a condominium owners’ association builds for future renovations.
• Reserves Undistributed profit within equity — required by law or set aside voluntarily.
• Retained profit The part of the profit neither distributed nor allocated to reserves — it is carried forward.

• Salary statement The annual certificate for the tax return.
• Secondary employment A second gainful activity alongside the main one.
• Service-charge statements Heating and operating costs are collected and allocated to tenants by an allocation key.
• SIA project phases Regulation 102 of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects divides a project into phases from strategic planning to operation and allocates the …
• Sickness daily allowance (KTG) Voluntary insurance of lost earnings during illness — voluntary for the business, often mandatory under a collective agreement.
• Signing authority (Prokura) A power of representation entered in the commercial register for all business the company brings with it.
• Simple accounts Income, expenditure and asset position — the form the law provides for small sole proprietorships.
• Social-insurance dental tariff The tariff by which dental services are billed to disability, military and accident insurance — with its own point values per payer.
• Sole proprietorship A business owned by one natural person. No share capital, no separation from private assets — and full liability.
• Staff meals If a business feeds its staff, that is payment in kind.
• Swiss SME chart of accounts The Swiss SME chart of accounts is the national standard and the basis of every year-end close.
• Swiss tenancy law Articles 253 to 274g of the Code of Obligations govern tenancy …
• Swissdec ELM Payroll declarations to the old-age insurance, the accident insurer, tax authorities and insurers run electronically through the Swissdec standard.

• Takeaway 2.6 vs. eat-in 8.1 The same dish carries two rates: 2.6 % reduced for take-away, 8.1 % standard for consumption on the premises.
• Tamper resistance Once filed, documents must be unalterable or every change must be logged.
• TARDOC / TARMED Medical services are billed under TARMED, which TARDOC replaces from 2026.
• Thirteenth month salary No statutory entitlement — it arises from the contract or a collective agreement.
• Time-and-material reports The daily report on work billed not at a fixed price but by time and material: hours, materials, machines, countersigned on site.
• Tips A voluntary tip is not VAT-liable turnover, but it belongs in the till reconciliation, and a business that passes it on to staff must document the …
• Trade-association workflows The workflows the Swiss automotive trade association prescribes for the workshop order, warranty processing and hourly billing.
• Trust Center Billing to insurers runs through a Trust Center or a clearing office.
• Turnover The sum of invoiced work in a period, excluding VAT.
• TWINT as a payment method The most widespread cashless payment method in Switzerland, unknown abroad.

• UID number The single company identification number for all authorities, in the format CHE-123.456.789.
• Unemployment insurance (ALV) ALV contributions on salary up to a ceiling, borne half and half.
• Used-vehicle trading Trading used vehicles brings its own requirements: the vehicle as an inventory item with cost value and days in stock, the trade-in as part payment …

• Value added tax The tax on consumption that the business collects and passes on.
• Value adjustment The downward correction of an asset because its value has fallen — unlike depreciation it is not planned.
• Variable costs Costs that rise with volume: materials, subcontracting, hourly wages, transport.
• VAT 3.8 % accommodation Overnight stays fall under the special rate of 3.8 %, catering under the standard rate.
• VAT 8.1 / 2.6 / 3.8 % The software has to carry all three Swiss rates — standard, reduced and the special rate for accommodation — and assign them correctly on documents …
• VAT liability Mandatory from CHF 100,000 of annual turnover from taxable supplies.
• Vehicle inspections The cantonal road traffic office inspects vehicles at statutory intervals.
• Visitor taxes Visitor taxes are not taxable if they are invoiced to the guest separately and labelled as such.
• Volunteer-run structure Committee and treasurer change, work in their spare time and are not accountants.
• Voucher The document that justifies an entry. Without a voucher, an entry is an assertion.

• Withholding tax For employees without a settlement permit the employer withholds tax at source, using cantonal tariffs that change every year.
• Work permits Residence and work permits — B, C, G, L — with an expiry date per person.
• Working-hours recording (ArG) Article 46 of the Labour Act requires records of working and rest hours …

• Year-end closing modules A year-end close needs more than a balance sheet: accruals, fixed-asset accounting, account reconciliation and an auditable report.