How quints fills the VAT return¶

What quints vat report does with each booking: which Ziffer it lands in, at which rate, and what it checks. Read this to predict a result or tag a booking that the defaults would put somewhere else. The steps for filing are in File your VAT return.

The rates¶

Rates are law,¹ so they ship with quints, dated. You never put one in quints.toml. The form has two rate vintages side by side, one Ziffer each:

quints picks the vintage from the transaction date. A supply made in 2023 but invoiced later still belongs in the old column: tag that transaction mwst: "old_rate" and it files under 302/312/342. The report prints only the rows in force in the period, plus any old-rate row that carries an amount.

The Saldosteuersätze the ESTV can grant are law too,² so a rate in quints.toml that isn't on the list is rejected:

Since 2025 a business can hold several rates: the ESTV grants one for every activity worth more than 10 % of taxable turnover.

Which Ziffer a booking lands in¶

Four rules, applied in order. The first one that matches wins.

1. A mwst: tag on the posting, or else on the transaction. The value is a space-separated list of tokens:

An unknown token is never ignored. It is listed in the report's Prüfung table, so a typo can't quietly change a return.

2026-09-10 * "Altkunde" "2023 supply, invoiced now"
  mwst: "old_rate"
  Assets:CH:GmbH:Receivable:Trade                1077.00 CHF
  Income:CH:GmbH:Consulting:External:Domestic   -1000.00 CHF
  Liabilities:CH:GmbH:Tax:OutputVAT               -77.00 CHF

2. The account's kmu: code, from the Swiss KMU Kontenrahmen:

• 3800–3899 (Erlösminderungen, Verluste Forderungen) → Ziffer 235. A Skonto, a rebate or a Debitorenverlust booked there is deducted from turnover, and its OutputVAT reversal reduces the matching rate row.
• Income outside 3000–3899 isn't Entgelt and stays out of the return: realised FX gains (6950), rounding, Bestandesänderungen (39xx). The exception is a transaction that charges OutputVAT with no 3000–3899 leg beside it, such as a side-business sale on 7000. VAT was charged, so it was a taxable supply,⁸ and its net is counted with its tax.
• Income on 7000–8999 without a tag (betrieblicher Nebenerfolg, betriebsfremder or ausserordentlicher Ertrag) and without OutputVAT is listed under Prüfung with its amount, and stays out of the figures. Its code can't tell whether it is Entgelt: exempt rent belongs in 200 and 230, Schadenersatz in 910. Tag it exempt, taxable, donation, subvention or not_entgelt so Ziffer 200 is complete. Financial income (6950–6999) and FX gains are not affected.
• Input VAT is split into 400 or 405 by the counter-leg's code (below).

3. The income-account markers under [accounts] in quints.toml. Each is matched as a substring of the account name, most specific first:

[accounts]
export_marker = ":Export"             # Ziffer 221
export_goods_marker = ":ExportGoods"  # Ziffer 220
exempt_marker = ":Exempt"             # Ziffer 230
optioned_marker = ":Optioned"         # Ziffer 205
reduced_marker = ":Reduced"           # 2.6 % → Ziffer 313
lodging_marker = ":Lodging"           # 3.8 % → Ziffer 343

So Income:CH:GmbH:Books:Reduced is reduced-rate turnover without any tag, and Income:CH:GmbH:Trade:ExportGoods lands in 220 rather than 221. Set a marker to "" to turn it off.

4. Otherwise, a booking is domestic turnover at the standard rate.

Ziffer 200 is the gross worldwide turnover; 289 adds up 220–280; 299 is 200 − 289 and always equals the net of the section-II rate rows. If it doesn't, some turnover landed nowhere, and the report says so.

Input VAT: 400 vs 405¶

The form splits the deduction in two. quints decides from the KMU code of the dominant counter-leg, the posting with the largest CHF amount:

• Kontenklasse 4 (Material-, Waren-, Dienstleistungsaufwand) → 400
• everything else → 405: investments (1400–1799), personnel and übriger Betriebsaufwand (5/6/7), or no code at all

For a consulting company, almost everything is 405. The total (479) is the same either way, but the form asks for the split. A tag overrides it.

2026-07-03 * "Eigenverbrauch" "Vorsteuerkorrektur (Art. 31)"
  Assets:CH:GmbH:Tax:InputVAT   -30.00 CHF
    mwst: "vorsteuerkorrektur"
  Expenses:CH:GmbH:Material      30.00 CHF

479 = 400 + 405 + 410 − 415 − 420, exactly as the form computes it.

Credits to InputVAT. A supplier's credit note credits InputVAT together with the expense or investment it reduces. That credit reduces 400 or 405 in the period it is booked.⁷ A credit with no such leg, i.e. input VAT moved into cost, is ambiguous. Dated on vat_registered_since, it is read as the reversal of input VAT booked before you were liable: never deducted, so it stays out of the return. On any other day, tag it vorsteuerkorrektur or vorsteuerkuerzung. Untagged, it is listed under Prüfung and left out. A Bezugsteuer debit outside a settlement (a foreign supplier's credit note) reduces 383/382 the same way.

What you owe, or are owed¶

399 − 479 is the period's result.

• Positive: it prints as Ziffer 500 (zu bezahlender Betrag).
• Negative: it prints as Ziffer 510 (Guthaben der steuerpflichtigen Person). That is a claim on the ESTV: the settlement books it as a debit balance on PayableVAT, and quints vat status shows it as a negative amount until it is refunded or offset.

The consistency check¶

Every transaction with turnover is checked: the output VAT it posts must equal net × rate, within a few Rappen. The report lists any mismatch rather than filing it wrongly, and so does --json under violations. Typical causes are the old rate applied by habit, a missing VAT leg, or VAT on an exempt supply.

A sale with legs at different rates (100.00 at 8.1 % and 1000.00 at 2.6 %, posting 34.10) is checked as a whole. When it matches, each rate row gets the tax its net owes (8.10 on 303, 26.00 on 313).

Every Ziffer is rounded to the Rappen once, and the form's sums (289, 299, 399, 479, 500) are taken over the rounded figures, as the ESTV portal adds them. A Rappen of rounding left between 299 and the rate rows goes to the largest row.

Foreign currency¶

An amount in another currency is valued at the rate in prices.bean for its date, or the latest one before it. With no rate at all, the amount is left out of the return and listed. It is never counted as CHF 0: run quints prices sync. A VAT leg (OutputVAT, InputVAT, Bezugsteuer) booked in another currency is counted at its CHF value and listed, because the return and the settlement are in CHF. Book VAT legs in CHF with quints vat convert.

The ledger's own loader errors are listed the same way, first. A file the loader couldn't read, or a transaction with a syntax error, is missing from every Ziffer, so the report still renders and names what is missing.

Under the Saldosteuersatz¶

• Section I has the same Ziffern 200–299, but every figure includes VAT.³ The statutory VAT a sale charged is part of its turnover.
• Section II is one turnover line per vintage (323; 322 until 31.12.2023), split across the granted rates, plus Bezugsteuer (383/382) at the statutory rate. There is no input-VAT block.⁴
• Input VAT: any InputVAT posting is a violation. Purchases are booked gross.
• Several rates: a supply goes to the rate whose marker its income account carries, else to the first rate without one. mwst: "sss=1.3" pins a single booking.
• Excluded accounts: the saldo_difference and bezugsteuer_expense accounts are kept out of the return by name, so a hand-written settlement can't file them wrongly.

The periods and their dates¶

• Filing period: quarters for the effective method, half-years for the Saldosteuersatz, or a year on request.⁵
• Periods quints accepts: -p 2026-Q3, 2026-H2, 2026, or any --from/--to range. A range must not span a change of method (see Register, switch method, deregister).
• Registration: the period is clamped to it, and the report prints the stretch it covered.
• Due date: quints vat settle writes due: 60 days after the period ends.⁶

JSON¶

quints vat report --json returns:

• zNNN: each Ziffer as a key, with a decimal string rounded to the Rappen, exactly as the text report prints it. z500 is the signed net (the figure the settlement posts); z510 carries a credit as a positive number.
• rate_rows: the section-II lines, with their rate class, vintage and, under the Saldosteuersatz, the granted rate's label.
• violations: anything the form can't represent.
• vat_method, form, liable_from / liable_to (the stretch actually covered), and notices.

Keys are only ever added, never renamed or removed.