Lebanese Plan Comptable for pharmacies — chart of accounts explained

Why a Lebanese pharmacy can't avoid the Plan Comptable

Every business registered in Lebanon files financial statements against the Plan Comptable. For a retail pharmacy that means VAT returns, NSSF declarations, year-end tax submissions, and bank financing all map back to the standard account codes. The codes are not optional — they are the language Lebanese accountants, banks, and the Ministry of Finance speak.

The accounts a pharmacy actually uses every day

Most of the Plan Comptable's depth is not used in routine pharmacy operations. The accounts that come up daily are the ones that touch sales, inventory, customer credit, supplier balances, and the dual-currency variance that Lebanon's exchange-rate environment introduces.

• Class 3 — Stocks (drug inventory, batch-level)
• Class 4 — Receivables (customer credit / tabs, NSSF reimbursement claims) and Payables (suppliers, distributors, VAT)
• Class 5 — Cash and bank (LBP and USD accounts, cash floats per branch)
• Class 6 — Operating expenses (salaries, rent, utilities) and exchange-rate losses (6388)
• Class 7 — Revenues (sales of medicines, services) and exchange-rate gains (7388)

How dual-currency posts onto the Plan Comptable

Lebanon's parallel-market exchange rates mean a sale rung in USD and a sale rung in LBP have to land on the same journal in a comparable way. The standard approach is to keep one functional currency at the book level (typically LBP) and post every transaction with both LBP and USD amounts on the same journal line, using the exchange rate captured at the moment of the sale. The rate that applied is stored on the transaction so historical reports reproduce the original numbers.

The exchange-rate variance accounts

Two Plan Comptable accounts handle the variance that comes from rate movement: 6388 (perte de change — exchange-rate losses) and 7388 (gain de change — exchange-rate gains). When a shift closes and the LBP/USD cash count does not match the journal at the rate that applied, the variance posts to one of these accounts automatically. The same logic applies to settlements with suppliers paid in a different currency than the originating purchase order.

What this looks like on PharmEasy

PharmEasy ships with a fully-mapped Lebanese Plan Comptable chart at install. Every sale, return, payment, refund, NSSF claim, and supplier transaction posts to the correct account code automatically. Cash shift variances post to 6388 / 7388 at shift close. Journal entries are exportable to Excel or PDF in the standard account-code format so any Lebanese accountant can pick them up without retraining on a proprietary system.