Signature not matching the sample is fined 10 million VND: How to understand correctly?

Decree 41/2018/ND-CP was issued by the Government on March 12, 2018, regulating administrative sanctions for violations in the fields of accounting and independent auditing. The Decree takes effect from May 1, 2018.

Notably, Article 8, Clause 2d states that a fine of 5 - 10 million VND will be imposed on a person's signature on an accounting document that is inconsistent or not in accordance with the signature sample registration book.

This provision has given rise to many different interpretations, many of which argue that it is mandatory to sign 100% identically, and any discrepancy will result in a fine. Accordingly, the regulation becomes unreasonable, causing difficulties for businesses.

Mr. Pham Cong Tham, Permanent Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Certified Public Accountants, said that accountants usually have two signatures: a full signature and an initial signature.

The initial signature is used when processing documents in the agency, while the full signature is the signature for transactions of accounting documents and accounting reports. The full signature is the registered signature and has legal validity.

He said accountants often practice making sure their signatures are identical. However, it is impossible to be absolutely identical. "The signatures can vary slightly," he said.

Therefore, he believes that the regulation in Decree 41 should not be rigidly understood as the signature must be 100% identical to the one on the accounting documents. When making transactions, to check the signature, people usually consider the number of strokes, the way the hook goes up and down... to compare, but do not require absolute similarity.

He also added that this did not cause any difficulties for business operations.

Mr. Vu Duc Chinh, Director of the Department of Accounting and Auditing Supervision and Management (Ministry of Finance) also discussed this issue.

According to Mr. Chinh, the regulation that the signature on accounting documents of one person must be consistent has been clearly stated in the Accounting Law 2003, inherited in the Accounting Law 2015. This comes from practice, from the need to ensure the legality of accounting documents, avoid the risk of forging signatures on documents, especially for accounting documents involved in the transaction and payment process.

Signature registration in some cases, if required, ensures the safety of the units themselves that conduct economic transactions. This helps the unit have a basis to check and verify the legality of accounting documents before transactions, payments and accounting entries, and more importantly, ensures the safety of the money and assets of that unit itself.

For example, in some units that have regular transactions with customers (such as banks), customers are required to register the signature samples of the signers on transaction documents. If the signature does not match the registered sample, the agency will return the document, and the customer must re-create another document, ensuring that the signature is consistent with the sample registered with this unit.

Signature comparison during transactions is qualitative based on the comments of the transaction officer, who realizes that this may not be the signature of the registered person, so the transaction cannot be performed with confidence.

However, for electronic signatures, each signature is issued to an individual or organization in a unique way, so if it is not consistent or incorrect, then the signature is completely wrong, and cannot be said to be similar.

Therefore, the regulation that signatures must be unified does not affect transactions using electronic signatures, because if there is no mistake, the unification is natural.

Mr. Chinh affirmed that there is no requirement for a person to sign documents with 100% identical signatures. In fact, for each of us, at different times, the signatures may not be completely identical.

"Therefore, in Article 8, Decree 41 does not use the phrase 'dissimilar signatures', but uses the phrase 'inconsistent or incorrect signatures...," he said.

"Inconsistent" and "not in accordance with registration", according to Mr. Chinh's explanation, means that when looking at the signature, the reader cannot recognize it and cannot confirm that this is a registered signature.

Thus, the provisions of Decree 41 should not be understood rigidly and in reality, it does not mean that if the signature on accounting documents is not exactly the same (sometimes high, sometimes tilted, sometimes slightly short, with a slightly light stroke, ...) compared to the registration, there will be a penalty.

Administrative sanctions, if any, are understood to be for intentionally conducting transactions with documents with inconsistent signatures or not in accordance with the registration form (if prescribed).

The person with the authority to draw up a record of violation will consider the actual business process to decide whether the violation is serious enough to warrant a penalty before deciding to draw up a record of administrative violation.

The Director of the Department of Accounting and Auditing Supervision and Management said that this regulation will increase the responsibility of relevant organizations and individuals, limit violations when preparing transaction documents, and ensure that economic activities avoid risks and errors from the stage of preparing accounting documents.

"The penalty that people are worried about is that a person will be fined for signing different accounting documents, but that is completely not true," Mr. Vu Duc Chinh emphasized once again.