On 30 December 2016, Goverment issued Decree No. 174/2016/NĐ-CP on detailed regulations on Accounting Law with following noticeable terms:
Accounting documents stored on the electronic media: the legal representative of the enterprise has the right to decide to store the accounting documents on paper or on electronic media. The store on electronic media is required to ensure the information security and confidentiality, and to enable the documents be searched in the storing period.
The time to store accounting documents: The accounting documents, which are not used directly for accounting ledgers and financial statements as well not to store in the files of accounting documents such as receipt voucher, payment voucher, delivery note, and receipt note, are allowed to store in the minimum period of 5 years; The accounting documents, used directly for accounting ledgers and financial statement such as detailed general lists, detailed accounting ledgers, general accounting ledgers, monthly, quarterly or yearly finanacial statement of the enterpirses, final accounts, acccouting checking report, deletion minutes of stored accouting documents and other documents, are allowed to store in the minimum period of 10 years.
Criteria and condition for chief accountants and accountants in charge: Chief accountans and accountants in charge are required to meet the regualtions issued in Accounting Law and ensure to have chief accounting certificate within 24 months from the date this Decree takes effect.
In addition, The Decree also issued regulations on inbound cross-border accounting services of accounting enterprises and accounting professional body.
This Decree takes effect from 1st January 2017 and replaces Decree No. 128/2004/NĐ-CP and Decree 129/2004/NĐ-CP.
