---
title: "Compliance & Tax Filing"
description: "See which returns are due, generate each one from your posted figures, have it reviewed and finalized, download the file and mark it filed. 10 countries."
url: "https://bareledger.app/guides/compliance"
category: "Tax & compliance"
updated: "2026-10-29"
publisher: "BareLedger (Syneria Technologies OPC)"
---

# Compliance & Tax Filing

> See what is due, generate a return from posted figures, review, finalize, and mark it filed.

**Statutory Filings**, under **Compliance** in the sidebar, turns your posted books into the tax returns and statutory reports your company is registered for — without you having to build them by hand.

Which specific forms are available to you depends on your company's country and the tax registrations your administrator has set up under Settings (see [Settings](https://bareledger.app/guides/settings)); a country's forms, their exact fields, and how often each is due are configured behind the scenes as part of that country's tax pack. This page covers the generic shape of the workflow, which is the same regardless of which forms your country offers.

## Step 1: See what's due

Open **Compliance → Statutory Filings**. The **Filing obligations** table lists every form your company is registered for, one row per period it applies to (monthly, quarterly, or annual, depending on the form), with its due date and current status — **Missing** (nothing generated yet), or the status of the filing already started for that period (see below).

## Step 2: Generate a filing

Click **Generate** on an obligation row (or **Generate filing** from the top of the page and pick the form and period yourself). Confirm the **period start/end dates** — these default sensibly based on the form's frequency. Click **Generate**.

> This computes every figure straight from your posted records for that period — nothing is filed anywhere yet. The result is a **draft** you can review before anything becomes official.

## Step 3: Review the draft, and fix anything that needs a manual adjustment

Open the generated filing to see its line-by-line breakdown. If a specific line needs a manual correction — a figure your bookkeeper knows should differ from what the automatic calculation produced — click the edit icon on that line, enter the corrected **amount** and a required **reason** for the override. Overridden lines are clearly marked so it's obvious later which numbers were touched by hand and why.

If your books change after generating (a late invoice gets posted, for example), click **Regenerate** to recompute every line from your records again — your manual overrides are kept wherever that line still exists.

## Step 4: Finalize

Once the draft looks right, click **Finalize**. This freezes the amounts as the official snapshot for that period — lines can no longer be edited after this point. If anything about the data looks unusual, you may still see a warning banner even after finalizing; review those, but they don't block you from finalizing.

## Step 5: Mark as filed

After you've actually submitted the return to your tax authority (outside of BareLedger — filing itself isn't automated), come back and click **Mark as filed**. This is a bookkeeping status only — it records that the submission happened, for your own records and audit trail; it doesn't transmit anything anywhere.

## Exporting

At any stage, use **Export** to download the filing in whatever format that form supports — PDF, CSV, Excel, or a country-specific format (such as a DAT or fixed-width text file), depending on what the form requires.

## Withholding tax certificates

Two related but separate pipelines live alongside Statutory Filings, for creditable withholding tax specifically:

- **Withholding Credits** — certificates *customers* give **you**, proving tax they withheld from what they paid you. Record them here as they arrive; see [Sales: Invoices & Receipts](https://bareledger.app/guides/sales) for where this connects to your invoices and payments.
- **WHT Certificates** — certificates **you** issue to *suppliers*, proving tax you withheld from what you paid them. See [Purchases: Bills & Payments](https://bareledger.app/guides/purchases).

## Common mix-ups

- Expecting **Mark as filed** to actually submit your return — it only records that you did, for your own audit trail.
- Trying to edit a line after finalizing — finalizing intentionally locks the snapshot; if something's genuinely wrong, regenerate a fresh draft isn't possible after finalizing, so double-check before you finalize.
- Assuming every company sees the same forms — what's available depends entirely on your country and your registered tax types.