Is it necessary to install cash registers in beauty salons?

All salon business owners constantly have to deal with many obligations that the competent authorities of our state generously and tirelessly bestow on them. You need to be on alert regarding sanitation standards, and we must not forget about emergency service representatives who may come to check. If the salon’s activities include the provision of cosmetology services (mesotherapy, botulinum toxin injections, etc.), the Ministry of Health, registration of a license and accompanying monitoring of compliance with all conditions are added to all of the above. Of course, we should not forget about the establishment’s advertising support, the constant turnover of employees, their registration and payment of taxes for each of them. One of the faces of this polygon is the installation of a cash register, or settlement transaction recorder (PRO). How to find out in what cases the owner of a beauty salon needs to install PPO, is it possible to somehow avoid this, and if this is impossible, then how to do everything correctly?

Anna Lyndina , assistant lawyer , Law Office of Dmitry Alexandrov

CASH REGISTER INSTALLATION PROCEDURE

These legislative acts oblige the use of cash registers:

1. Entrepreneurs - single tax payers who accept payment in cash, payment cards, tokens (the third group of single tax payers - from July 1, 2015, and the second group - from January 1, 2016).
2. Enterprises operating under the general taxation group and accepting cash payments are required to apply PPO in any case.

The cash register may not be used:

• Individual entrepreneurs (individual entrepreneurs) on a single tax of any group who have not yet reached a turnover of 1 million hryvnia in the current calendar year. In case of excess income, the installation of a PPO is mandatory. Application of the RPO begins on the first day of the first month of the quarter following the occurrence of such an excess, and continues in subsequent tax periods during the validity of the single tax payer certificate.
• All individuals - entrepreneurs who are payers of the single tax of the first group.
• Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine “On the use of settlement transaction registrars” makes it possible to avoid installing a cash register when selling goods of your own production. As you know, some salons have the practice of such sales. In this case, when trading products of their own production by enterprises of all forms of ownership, except for trade and public catering enterprises, in the case of making payments at the cash desks of these institutions with the execution of receipt and expenditure cash orders and the issuance of relevant receipts, signed and sealed in the prescribed manner, use no need for a cash register.

CASH REGISTER REGISTRATION

Those beauty centers that are not covered by the benefits described above need to know how and where to register a cash register.

Registration of RPO is carried out with the fiscal service authorities at the main place of registration of the enterprise as a tax payer.

Documentation

To register a RPO, a business entity submits the following package of documents:

• application for registration of RPO in form No. 1-RRO (hereinafter referred to as the registration application). The registration application must be signed by the head of the enterprise or an individual ⎼ entrepreneur, indicating the date of filing. All sections of the registration application are subject to mandatory completion;
• a copy of the document confirming the fact of purchase or free receipt of the RPO, another document confirming the right of ownership or use of the RRO;
• a copy of the ownership document or other document giving the right to locate the business unit where the RPO will be used;
• a copy of the enterprise’s agreement with the CSO (service center) on the maintenance and repair of the RPO.

Copies of documents are certified by the signature of the head of the enterprise or the personal signature of an individual ⎼ entrepreneur. When submitting a registration application in paper form, the business entity shall present the originals of the relevant documents.

Fiscal number

No later than two working days from the date of receipt of documents, the state body makes a decision on the possibility of registering a RPO, generates and reserves the fiscal number of the RPO in the information system and issues to the submitting entity a certificate of reservation of the fiscal number of the RPO in Form No. 2-RRO (hereinafter referred to as the certificate of reservation fiscal number). It is worth remembering that the fiscal number reservation certificate is valid for five working days from the date of its issue (sent to the company’s email address).

Completing registration

To complete the registration process of a cash register, the entity that wishes to install a cash register, before the expiration of the certificate of fiscal number reservation, provides the fiscal service authority with a copy of the certificate of sealing of the cash register and the certificate of commissioning of the cash register. In case of failure to provide or untimely provision of the specified documents, the certificate of reservation of the fiscal number is considered invalid.

HAVE BEEN INSTALLED – WHAT’S NEXT?

After receiving properly executed documents, the official of the revenue and fees body, no later than the next working day, registers the RPO by entering data into the information system and provides the business entity with a RPO registration certificate in form No. 3-RRO (hereinafter referred to as the registration certificate), which certifies the registration of the RPO in the revenue and duties authority.

Fines

After installing a cash register, you must be prepared for inspections and familiarize yourself with the amount of penalties that are fixed in law. If, during an inspection of a business entity, duly confirmed facts are revealed, repeated violations of the requirements regarding the application of RROs are applied to the business entity by the following fines:

• if you violate it for the first time ⎼ the fine will be 1 hryvnia;
• if the second time, the amount of the fine will be 100% of the cost of goods (services) sold in violation;
• for the third and any subsequent time - five times the value of the goods (services) sold in violation;
• for failure to use a payment book and/or lack of daily reporting, you will have to pay a fine of 340 UAH;
• for violation of cash discipline and/or non-compliance and/or absence of the PPO control tape – 170 UAH;
• for unfinished software used in the operation of the cash register, in terms of the lack of preliminary programming of the names of goods/services and their costs - 85 UAH;
• Failure to properly record the goods/services sold will result in a fine equal to twice their value.

Features of a cash register

When choosing a cash register, you need to take into account that from January 1, 2016, the Tax Service registers only those cash registers that create a control tape in electronic form. The cash register used must be certified, sealed and registered in the state register of cash registers. The payment document for the service provided must comply with the established form and reflect its full cost. Payment books are subject to registration in accordance with the procedure established by the tax administration.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

When the cash register is already installed, you will have to deal with the complications that will arise with its operation. The RPO may fail due to a malfunction due to a lack of communication and power supply to the host unit. In such cases, settlements with buyers cannot be stopped. If the cash register is out of order or the power is temporarily turned off, you can carry out settlement transactions without using the main registrar. In this case, there are two options for conducting settlement operations:

• use of a backup RPO, provided that it was duly registered with the State Fiscal Service (the case when electricity is available, but the working RPO is out of order);
• use of a payment book registered with the State Fiscal Service (used both in the absence of electricity and in the absence of a spare cash register).

It is provided that business entities in cases of force majeure can work without the main cash register:

• in case of power outage – no more than 72 hours (7 working days);
• in case of failure of the RPO - for the duration of repair work.

At the same time, it is taken into account that in the event of a cash register breakdown, service centers are obliged to ensure the restoration of its operation within 72 hours. The maintenance agreement provides for liability for failure to comply with these deadlines.

In addition to RPO breakdowns and lack of electricity, other nuances may arise. For example, if the location of a business unit changes, the cash register must be re-registered. To do this, you need to submit an application form No. 1 - RPO, which indicates data about the business unit (the address indicated in the document on the right of ownership or use of the business unit).

It is worth noting that the cost of a payment transaction recorder ranges from 5 thousand UAH and above, and the service life of the device is approximately 7 years.

Analyzing the above, we can come to the conclusion that the process of installing and operating a cash register is quite labor-intensive, but if its use cannot be avoided in any way, then it is worth at least having information about all the legal and accounting components of this issue.