GlossaryClose & accounts
What is the annexe (notes to the French financial statements)?
The notes to the financial statements (annexe) explain the figures in the balance sheet and income statement: the accounting methods used, the detail behind each account, and commitments not shown on the balance sheet itself. They form part of the annual accounts rather than an attachment to them.
In practice, in France
It is the most overlooked and the most closely read of the three annual accounts. Overlooked because it looks like paperwork; read because it is where the other two statements stop short: the valuation methods chosen, any change of method, the ageing of receivables and payables, and off-balance-sheet commitments such as guarantees, finance leases, and pending litigation.
The French chart of accounts (plan comptable général) sets its required content, with a simplified regime for small companies. That simplified content stays mandatory: “simplified” does not mean optional.
In Odoo
Odoo supplies the raw material — trial balances, payment schedules, depreciation tables — but does not draft the notes themselves. That is done in the review tool or by the accounting firm.
What costs time at that point is always the same thing: tracking down commitments that were never recorded anywhere. A guarantee given, a finance lease signed, litigation under way leave no accounting entry — yet they still have to appear.
Common mistakes
- Treating it as an end-of-process formality, when it is the document a banker or a buyer actually reads.
- Forgetting off-balance-sheet commitments, which by definition sit outside any journal entry.
- Changing a valuation method without disclosing it — disclosing exactly that kind of change is what the notes exist for.
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.