GlossaryTax
What is the French FEC file?
The FEC is a standardised export of every accounting entry in a financial year, which any company keeping computerised books must be able to hand to the French tax authority during an audit. Its format is prescribed.
In practice, in France
The FEC is requested at the start of a tax audit. Its format is fixed by the authority: eighteen fields, a prescribed order, and a chronological, irreversible sequence of entries. A rejected file counts as no file at all — this is an obligation of form as much as of substance.
In Odoo
Odoo generates the FEC natively under the French localisation. What breaks an FEC is almost never the export itself: it is entries amended after posting, documents without a sequential number, or an open journal left to reorder itself. Compliance is won at data entry, not at export.
Common mistakes
- Discovering the FEC on the day of the audit rather than testing it once a year.
- Amending posted entries, which makes the sequence reversible and strips the file of its evidential value.
- Assuming any accounting export will serve as an FEC.
These definitions are for guidance and do not replace professional advice. Each entry carries its last-updated date. Filing deadlines are not listed here: they change every year and live in the tax calendar.