Open Format - the export file your accountant asks for, and how to produce it
“Send me the Open Format file” is a request every freelancer in Israel hears from their accountant at least once a year, and sometimes directly from the Tax Authority during an audit.
What Open Format is
Open Format (mivneh achid, officially “the uniform structure for transferring accounting data files”) is a standard file format set by the Israel Tax Authority. It lets a business transfer all of its accounting data - documents, transactions, customer and supplier records - in one uniform shape that every bookkeeping program and every accountant knows how to read, regardless of which specific software originally produced the data.
The two files that make it up
Two files together make up an Open Format export. The INI file is a text file describing the structure - which record types exist in the data file and in what order. The BKMVDATA file is the actual data file, containing every record itself (documents, transactions and so on), typically encoded in ISO-8859-8-I, the Hebrew-specific encoding. Both files together, packaged into a single ZIP, are what counts as a complete Open Format file.
When you need it
Three common situations call for it: a routine request from your accountant to prepare financial statements and the annual income tax return, a Tax Authority audit that’s entitled to request the file directly from the business, and switching between bookkeeping systems to carry your full history over to a new one without retyping everything.
What happens without a valid Open Format file
A business that keeps its documents only as individual PDF files, with no system that can export Open Format, ends up having to manually re-enter dozens or hundreds of documents every time the file is needed - an expensive, error-prone process that an accountant will usually charge extra for.
What to do with the file once it’s exported
The file is usually sent straight to your accountant, who imports it into their own system to prepare the reports. If the Tax Authority requests it directly, it’s submitted to them according to whatever instructions they give.
How Slate produces Open Format
Slate produces a complete Open Format file (INI plus BKMVDATA) in a single click, straight from the documents already issued in the system, and also supports importing an Open Format file from a previous system. Moving to Slate doesn’t require retyping your existing history.