The Register of Accounting Services Providers (hereinafter: the Register) began operating within Serbian Business Registers Agency on 1 January 2021. It is a unique, central, electronic database of legal entities and entrepreneurs, which have registered predominant activity for providing accounting services and license to provide those services, issued by the Chamber of Certified Auditors.
In accordance with the Law on Accounting (Official Gazette of the RS, No. 73/2019), all legal entities and entrepreneurs which provide accounting services (hereinafter: accounting services providers), are obliged to align their business with the provisions of this Law, no later than three years from the entry into force of the Law, i.e. until 1 January 2023. Until that day, all those who want to continue performing the mentioned activities, have to fulfill conditions from the article 18 th, of the Law on Accounting, and they also have to get the decision on granting a license to provide accounting services from the Chamber of Certified Auditors. The Chamber of Certified Auditors, will submit the decision to the Serbian Business Registers Agency ex officio, for entry in the Register. Namely, the Law on Accounting prescribes that keeping the business books and compiling the financial statements, may be entrusted, based on the contract, to the accounting services provider, which is entered in the Register.
The management of the Register of Accounting Services Providers is entrusted to the Serbian Business Registers Agency by the Law on Accounting. The manner of keeping and the content of the Register of Accounting Services Providers, are regulated in details by Rulebook on the manner of keeping and the content of the Register of Accounting Services Providers (Official Gazette of the RS, No. 89/2020).
The Register contains the following data:
- basic data on the accounting services provider (business name and basic identification number);
- data on decision on granting or revoking the license for provision of accounting services (number and date of the decision);
- data on certified accountant employed by the accounting services provider with full time, including data on his professional title, the number and date of the act of acquiring the title, as well as the name of the issuer of the act;
- data of legal entities connected with the accounting services provider in accordance with the Law;
- date and number of entering the accountig services provider in the Register, i.e. its deletion from the Register, as well as on the date and number of changes which were made in the Register.
Exceptionally, when the subject of entry is an audit company, as an accounting services provider, no data on certified accountant are entered in the Register. The license is ex officio issued to such company, on the basis of the decision on granting a license to perform audit activities, which is issued in accordance with the Law on Audit.
The entry i.e. deletion of accounting service providers from the Register is performed ex officio, immediately upon the receipt of the decision on granting or revoking the license for providing accounting services, which the Chamber of Certified Auditors submits to the Serbian Business Registers Agency. The change of data which are kept in the Register, is made on the base of the request of accounting service provider. This request can also be submitted by the accountant himself. All requests are submitted to the Agency in electronic form, through special application of the Agency, established for the purpose of submitting the data and documents for entry in the Register.
Data publishing
The data kept in the Register of the Accounting Services Providers are published on the website of the Serbian Business Registers Agency, except for the data on identification number of the certified accountant or record number for foreign certified accountant, which are not published in accordance with the Rulebook. In addition to these data, other status data of accounting services providers, which are registered in the Register of Business Entities, as well as data from the Central Record of Beneficial Owners, are also published.
Simultaneously with the publication of these data, the Chamber’s decision of granting or revoking the license for provision of accounting services is also published.