The training section of your social balance sheet, code by code

The social balance sheet is not a separate form. The Royal Decree of 4 August 1996 built it into the annual accounts, and its section III covers the employer's training initiatives. For Belgian companies, from one full-time equivalent onwards, the standard annual accounts model contains that section and you have to complete it. Asked whether a company with a single employee has to complete it, the National Bank answers that it must be completed from the moment there is one employee. The average-of-20 full-time-equivalents threshold applies to associations and foundations, and to the separate social balance sheet filed by entities that do not publish annual accounts.

Three blocks, each asking the same three things: the number of employees involved, the training hours followed, and the net cost. Each figure twice, once for men and once for women. Only the formal block adds three sub-codes that show how you arrived at the net cost.

• Formal continuing vocational training: 5801, 5802 and 5803 for men, 5811, 5812 and 5813 for women, with sub-codes 58031, 58032 and 58033 and their counterparts 58131, 58132 and 58133.
• Less formal and informal continuing vocational training: 5821, 5822 and 5823 for men, 5831, 5832 and 5833 for women. No sub-codes.
• Initial vocational training: 5841, 5842 and 5843 for men, 5851, 5852 and 5853 for women.
• The same training codes appear in the full model, the abridged model and the micro-model. The model you file does not change the codes.
• Once the social balance sheet forms part of your annual accounts, the works council receives its content as part of the economic and financial information.

Every continuing training course you record falls into one of two boxes: formal or informal. Classify it correctly once and it is correct for both of your obligations: the FPS Employment requires your Belgian training plan to contain at least formal and informal training, using the same National Bank definition as the social balance sheet.

Formal vocational training means courses and work placements developed by trainers or speakers, characterised by a high degree of organisation by a trainer or training institution, and taking place somewhere clearly separated from the workplace. Whether you develop it yourself or buy it from an external body makes no difference: internally developed training stays formal, even when it physically happens off site.

Less formal and informal training is the mirror image: a high degree of self-organisation in time, place and content, content chosen according to the individual's needs at the workplace, and a direct link with the job. On-the-job training, mentoring and coaching, job rotation, exchanges, study visits, secondments, self-study, distance learning, and attending conferences, workshops, trade fairs and lectures.

• Not counted as training: brainstorming, sessions informing staff about company strategy, and simply welcoming new employees without any training content.
• Incidental learning, which is not planned in advance and on purpose, falls outside continuing vocational training.
• Training plans must also take the gender dimension into account. The social balance sheet asks for the same split.

For formal training the arithmetic is visible in the model: the gross costs directly linked to the training (58031), plus contributions and payments to collective funds (58032), minus subsidies and other financial benefits received (58033). Together those give you 5803.

For informal training there is only one cost line: 5823 for men, 5833 for women. No sub-codes. That is where it goes wrong. The absence of sub-codes does not mean gross equals net. The National Bank's methodological guidance is explicit: here too the figure is the net cost, the gross costs directly linked to the training less the subsidies and other financial benefits granted to the company, for example a mentoring premium paid by a sectoral training fund. The same deduction, without a line to show it on.

And the gross cost of informal training includes not only the pay of the person receiving the training but also the pay of the person delivering it, on-the-job coaching included.

• Formal: 58031 plus 58032 minus 58033 gives 5803.
• Informal: gross cost minus subsidies received gives 5823. One line, the same deduction.
• Initial: gross cost minus subsidies received, from sectoral training funds or from regional, federal or European support.
• Contributions and payments to collective funds belong only in the formal block, in 58032. Think of the risk-group contribution or the payment into the paid educational leave fund.
• The gross cost also includes employees' pay during the training hours and, where relevant, their travel and accommodation costs.

The number of employees involved is the number of different employees who had access to one or more training courses. Someone who took five during the financial year counts once. Obvious, until you have to extract it from attendance lists scattered across spreadsheets.

For continuing vocational training, formal and informal alike, only staff employed under an employment contract count. Temporary agency workers, people on an apprenticeship contract, trainees and others holding a training contract such as an individual vocational training placement may not be included there: they belong in the third block, initial vocational training, or appear elsewhere in the social balance sheet.

For hours the rule is tight: only what was spent during working time. Partly in working time and partly in the employee's own time? Only the working-time part may be counted. For initial vocational training the rule flips: there you count every hour the person is present in the company, whether or not those hours contribute to production, and you leave out the hours spent at the training institution.

• Deduplicated headcount: five courses taken by the same employee is one employee in 5801 or 5811.
• Apprenticeship contracts, trainees and training contracts such as an individual vocational training placement belong in 5841 to 5853, provided those people are declared as staff and their training runs for at least six months.
• Temporary agency workers appear elsewhere in the social balance sheet, not in the training section.

A number in a box is not an answer. The question that follows, from your works council, your statutory auditor or an inspector, is always the same: where does that come from. A spreadsheet stitched together in March from four sources cannot answer it six months later.

In Smart Lions every figure is the sum of records you made during the year, and it stays tied to the record underneath it.

• From 5802 to the per-session attendance records that make up the hours.
• From 58031 to the invoices, registration fees and costs you booked against each course.
• From 58033 to the subsidies you tracked: the Flemish SME portfolio, sector funds and Flemish training leave, each linked to the course it belongs to.
• From the course to the employee's training CV, with certificates and expiry dates.
• One export, in the National Bank's code order, ready to hand to your accountant or payroll provider.

Smart Lions delivers the training section of the social balance sheet. Deliberately: the rest is payroll data.

The statement of persons employed, hours actually worked, staff costs, staff turnover and agency workers come out of payroll. Your payroll provider already holds those figures and your accountant collects them there. What they do not hold is who took which course, how many hours it ran, what it cost and which subsidy offset it. That is the part somebody rebuilds from scratch every year. It is exactly the part we keep.

• Yes: 5801 through 5853, by gender, for formal, informal and initial training, in the National Bank's code order.
• No: the statement of persons employed, hours worked, staff costs and staff turnover.
• Also not from your training records: the contributions and payments to collective funds in 58032. That is a payroll cost and it sits with your payroll provider.
• Employee data comes in from your payroll provider or HR system: Acerta, SD Worx, Securex, Partena, Attentia, Officient, Personio, Protime, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, BambooHR, HiBob, Deel and Afas.
• You file the social balance sheet itself with your annual accounts. We deliver the training part.

The training section runs from 5801 to 5853. Formal continuing vocational training: 5801 (number of employees involved), 5802 (training hours followed) and 5803 (net cost) for men, 5811, 5812 and 5813 for women, with sub-codes 58031 gross costs, 58032 contributions and payments to collective funds, and 58033 subsidies and other financial benefits received to be deducted, plus 58131, 58132 and 58133 for women. Less formal and informal training: 5821, 5822 and 5823 for men, 5831, 5832 and 5833 for women. Initial vocational training: 5841, 5842 and 5843 for men, 5851, 5852 and 5853 for women.

Formal training means courses and work placements developed by trainers or speakers, characterised by a high degree of organisation by a trainer or training institution, and taking place somewhere clearly separated from the workplace. It can be developed and managed internally or by an external body. Less formal and informal training is characterised by a high degree of self-organisation in time, place and content, content set by the learner's individual needs at the workplace, and a direct link with the job: on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching, job rotation, exchanges, study visits, secondments, self-study, distance learning and attending conferences, workshops, trade fairs and lectures. Brainstorming, sessions informing staff about company strategy and simply welcoming new employees without training content do not count.

No. For less formal and informal training the model has only one cost line, 5823 for men and 5833 for women, without sub-codes. The figure asked for is still the net cost: the gross costs directly linked to the training, less the subsidies and other financial benefits granted to the company, for example a mentoring premium from a sectoral training fund. The absence of sub-codes does not entitle you to enter the gross cost.

Not in continuing vocational training: there, only staff employed under an employment contract may be counted. Temporary agency workers, people on an apprenticeship contract, trainees and others holding a training contract, such as an individual vocational training placement in a company, may not be included. Apprentices, trainees and holders of a training contract belong in initial vocational training, codes 5841 to 5853, but only where they are declared as staff and their training runs for at least six months towards an officially recognised diploma or certificate. Students on a school placement are not staff in the National Bank's reading and do not belong there; apprenticeship contracts shorter than six months go into informal continuing training instead. Agency workers appear elsewhere in the social balance sheet, not in the training section.

For formal and informal continuing vocational training you count the hours employees spent on training during working time. If a course is delivered partly during working time and partly outside it, only the part delivered during working time may be taken into account. Initial vocational training follows a different rule: there you count the total number of hours the people concerned spend in the company, whether or not those hours contribute to the production process. Hours not worked in the company, for instance hours spent at the training institution, may not be counted.

No, they are two obligations on separate clocks. The training plan applies to employers with 20 or more employees, and its content must be set by 31 March of the year at the latest, after the works council or, failing that, the union delegation has given its advice by 15 March at the latest. Within one month of the plan taking effect the employer files a copy, in Dutch via transfer.werk.belgie.be and in French via transfert.emploi.belgique.be; where the plan contains employees' personal data, the employer has to anonymise it before filing. The social balance sheet, by contrast, is part of your annual accounts and looks back on the closed financial year. They do meet at one point: the training plan must contain at least formal and informal training, and those terms must meet the definition given by the National Bank of Belgium, the same definition as in the social balance sheet.

Yes. The training section appears in all three annual accounts models, the full model, the abridged model and the micro-model, with the same codes and the same sub-codes, so the model you file does not change the codes. For Belgian companies employing at least one full-time equivalent the standard model contains a social balance sheet section that must be completed; asked whether it has to be completed when the company has only one employee, the National Bank answers that it must be completed from the moment there is one employee. The average-of-20 full-time-equivalents threshold applies to associations and foundations; those below 20 full-time equivalents may complete the section voluntarily. Private-law legal entities that do not have to publish annual accounts and have at least 20 people on their personnel register file a separate social balance sheet with the Central Balance Sheet Office: the full model from an average of 50 employees, the abridged model from an average of 20 to 49.

No. Smart Lions produces the training section: the number of employees involved, the training hours followed and the net cost, by gender, for formal, informal and initial training, in the National Bank's code order, as one export. The other sections of the social balance sheet, such as the statement of persons employed, the hours actually worked, staff costs and staff turnover, come out of payroll and are supplied by your payroll provider or accountant. The contributions and payments to collective funds in code 58032 come from there as well.

Log attendance, costs and subsidies as the year goes. When the annual accounts come round, the training section is ready, with the evidence sitting under every figure. Try Smart Lions in full for 30 days; after that your account continues automatically on Free. Start 30 days free

• The Royal Decree of 4 August 1996 integrated the social balance sheet into the annual accounts. Section III covers training initiatives. The works council receives the content of the social balance sheet as part of the economic and financial information.
• The codes and their exact labels: 5801 to 5803 and 5811 to 5813 with sub-codes 58031, 58032, 58033, 58131, 58132 and 58133 for formal training; 5821 to 5823 and 5831 to 5833 for less formal and informal training; 5841 to 5843 and 5851 to 5853 for initial vocational training, men and women separately. The National Bank publishes the models in Dutch and French.
• The same training codes also appear in the micro-model, so a small company completes them as well.
• Definition of formal vocational training: courses and work placements developed by trainers or speakers, a high degree of organisation, in a place clearly separated from the workplace, developed and managed either by the company itself or by an external body.
• Definition of less formal and informal training, what it covers and what it excludes, including brainstorming, company strategy information sessions and simply welcoming new employees without training content, and the exclusion of incidental learning from continuing training.
• The net cost of formal training is the gross cost directly linked to the training plus contributions paid to finance training, less subsidies received. The gross cost includes the pay of employees during training and their travel and accommodation costs. The contributions include the risk-group contribution under the law of 27 December 2006 and the payment into the paid educational leave fund.
• For less formal and informal training the figure required is still the net cost: gross costs less subsidies and other financial benefits received, for example a mentoring premium from a sectoral training fund. The gross cost also includes the pay of the person delivering the training.
• The net cost of initial vocational training is the gross cost less the subsidies received: subsidies from collective funds and regional, federal or European financial support.
• Only staff on an employment contract count in continuing vocational training; agency workers, apprentices, trainees and training contracts such as an individual vocational training placement are excluded. Each employee counts once. Only hours during working time count. Initial vocational training covers apprentices, trainees and training contracts, and counts the hours present in the company, excluding hours at the training institution.
• The training plan is required from 20 employees, its content must be set by 31 March, the works council or union delegation gives its advice by 15 March, and a copy is filed within one month of the plan taking effect via transfer.werk.belgie.be. The plan must contain at least formal and informal training meeting the National Bank's definition, and takes the gender dimension into account.
• The French-language filing platform for the training plan copy is transfert.emploi.belgique.be, and the works council or union delegation advice is due by 15 March.
• For Belgian companies employing at least 1 FTE the standard model contains a social balance sheet section that must be completed. The average-of-20-FTE threshold applies to associations and foundations. Private-law entities that do not file annual accounts and employ at least 20 people file a separate social balance sheet: the full model from an average of 50 employees, the abridged model optional from 20 to 49.
• The social balance sheet has to be completed from the moment the company has one employee. The contributions and payments to collective funds that count as training effort include the risk-group contribution (law of 27 December 2006, 0.10% to 0.90% of payroll depending on the sector) and the paid educational leave contribution (0.05% of payroll). Students on a placement are not staff and do not belong in initial vocational training; apprenticeship contracts shorter than six months go into informal continuing training.
• Where the training plan contains employees' personal data, the employer must anonymise it before sending the copy of the plan.