What it is
Electronic accounting (contabilidad electrónica) is the obligation to send your accounting records to the SAT, Mexico's tax authority, as XML files that follow Anexo 24 of the Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal (the SAT's yearly body of tax rules): the chart of accounts, a trial balance for every month, the year-end adjusted trial balance and, only when the authority asks for them, the pólizas (journal entries) and their supporting ledgers.
Containn builds those files from the hotel's general ledger, the same one behind your trial balance and financial statements. Nobody keeps a parallel spreadsheet.
When to use it
| File | When the SAT requires it | In Containn |
|---|---|---|
| Chart of accounts | With your first trial balance. After that, whenever you change it at the level of accounts already reported, no later than the trial balance for the month of the change. | Download it in Entrega al SAT |
| Monthly trial balance | Legal entities (personas morales): within the first three days of the second following month. Individuals (personas físicas): within the first five days. | Download it in Entrega al SAT |
| Year-end adjusted trial balance | Legal entities: by April 20 of the following year. Individuals: by May 22. | Not generated yet |
| Pólizas for the period | Only on request: audits, third-party cross-checks (compulsas), refund and offset claims. | Download it in Entrega al SAT |
| Account and invoice-folio ledgers | When the authority requests them. | Not generated as XML yet |
For example, a legal entity files its September trial balance within the first three days of November. The trial balance is due every month, even if the month had no activity.
Who signs and who submits
Files go through the Buzón Tributario (the SAT's electronic tax mailbox) or the SAT portal's Envía tu contabilidad electrónica service, always signed with the taxpayer's e.firma: the hotel's advanced electronic signature, which is not the seal you invoice with. The hotel's accountant usually does this.
Containn generates the files, but it does not seal or submit them, and it never asks for the e.firma: a signature used to file on the hotel's behalf should not live in a system the hotel does not control. Sealing the XML is optional for the SAT; signing the submission with the e.firma is not.
Step by step
- Make sure the hotel's RFC (Mexican taxpayer ID) is in the issuer details under Settings → CFDI Invoicing (SAT): the files take it from there.
- Close the month so no new póliza changes the trial balance you are about to file.
- In Containn → Entrega al SAT (SAT filing), type the month and download the trial balance and, when due, the chart of accounts.
- Compress each XML into a .zip with the same name: Containn already names it the way the SAT requires.
- Submit them with the e.firma and keep the receipts (acuses). If the SAT ever requests your pólizas, it will also ask for the chart and trial balance receipts for that period.
What can go wrong
- No RFC on file. Without the invoicing issuer details, the files are not generated.
- The SAT rejects a file for a technical error. You can resend it as many times as needed until the deadline. If you sent it in the last two days of the period and it is rejected, you have five days from the notice in the Buzón Tributario.
- You corrected a month you already filed. The SAT requires replacing the files within five days of the change. Today Containn produces the regular trial balance; the complementary one (complementaria) is not generated here yet.
It does not seal, submit or file tax returns. Each limit, and the reason behind it, is in What Containn does NOT do.