Voluntary and required corrections

The annual accounts of companies, non-profit associations, international non-profit associations and foundations may – or in some cases must - be corrected.

Such a correction or improvement can be made after the annual accounts in question have been approved by, as the case may be, the meeting of partners or shareholders (for companies), the general meeting (for non-profits and international non-profits) or the management body (for foundations).

The Code of Companies and Associations provides for two types of corrections:

  • “voluntary” corrections (Art 3:19 §1, first paragraph, CCA (companies); 3:49 §1, first paragraph CCA (non-profits and international non-profits); and 3:53, first paragraph, CCA (foundations));
  • “required corrections (Art 3:19 §1, second paragraph, CCA (companies); 3:49 §1, second paragraph CCA (non-profits and international non-profits); and 3:53, second paragraph, CCA (foundations)).

Voluntary corrections

Voluntary corrections are made to rectify:

  • clerical errors (e.g. calculation errors),
  • errors of original entry (the wrong amount is posted to an account) and of duplication,
  • valuation errors,
  • etc.

These corrections are purely voluntary. A prerequisite for such a correction is that the error in the initial filing may not result in the annual accounts not providing a true and fair view of the company’s assets, financial position and result.

Required corrections

A correction is required in the event of a violation of accounting law that prevents the annual accounts from giving a true and fair view of the enterprise's assets, financial position and results.

Comments

Standard non-consolidated annual accounts of companies, associations and foundations are subjected to arithmetic and logical checks in the Filing application prior to acceptance so that errors can be detected in advance.

  1. XBRL files for which the statutory checks reveal errors cannot be filed. The Filing application does not allow files with errors to be submitted.
  2. Since 4 April 2022, PDF files have also been subjected to statutory checks at the time of filing. The annual accounts are read in via OCR and converted into a structured data file to which, as with an XBRL file, validations are applied. If errors are found, the accounts are rejected.