Annual accounts summarise a company's financial position every year: balance sheet, income statement and notes. In Belgium, these documents become public once the company files them with the National Bank. For an SME, annual accounts therefore serve both to comply with the law and to assess a customer, a supplier or a competitor.
What the annual accounts of a Belgian company contain
The balance sheet shows what the company owns and what it owes on a given date. The income statement then shows how it made or lost money during the financial year. Finally, the notes add useful details, for example on employment or debts. Depending on the size of the company, the filing follows a micro, abridged or full format, with more or less detail. Each format follows a standard model. The larger the company, the more it has to publish.
Companies file these documents with the Central Balance Sheet Office of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB). The general meeting must first approve them. Respect the legal deadlines, because late filing leads to extra charges. Your accountant usually prepares everything, but it still pays to understand what these figures say about your business. Also check that the published figures reflect your real situation, since partners consult them too.
Using annual accounts to make decisions
Anyone can consult filed documents on the NBB website. Before you sign with a new customer or rely on a supplier, you can therefore check its financial health. A few ratios give a first opinion. Liquidity shows the ability to pay short-term debts, while solvency measures financial independence. Profitability, in turn, shows whether the activity creates value. Also look at how equity evolves from one year to the next. A steady decline deserves a closer look before you commit.
Nevertheless, keep a critical eye. These figures describe the past and appear several months after the end of the financial year. Moreover, a single ratio says little on its own: compare several years and companies in the same sector. Finally, a small company that files a micro format provides less information, which limits the analysis. Combine this data with your own experience of the partner, and ask questions when something looks unusual.
Our articles on annual accounts and automated analysis
Our article on automated financial analysis of a Belgian company shows how to turn annual accounts into readable indicators. It presents a scoring model, ratios based on NBB data and a classification by company size. You can then download a full PDF report, which is handy for sharing the analysis with your accountant or your bank. This saves time compared with reading the documents line by line.
Call on a professional when you want to bring this data into your own tools, for example to assess prospects automatically. At Espero-Soft, we develop web platforms and custom dashboards that use public data on Belgian companies. For accounting or tax interpretation, however, your accountant remains the right contact. We make sure the data stays reliable and up to date, and we explain each indicator in plain language.
