You can use SBR to file financial statements quickly and easily, whether you are an intermediary, who handles the filing of financial statements for your clients, or an entrepreneur.
What is SBR?
SBR is the national standard for the digital exchange of business reports, such as tax returns and financial statements. The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce KVK is one of the parties that uses this method. SBR can also be used for reports to the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, Statistics Netherlands and various banks. Read more about the government's SBR programme.
How does it work?
There are various methods for filing via SBR. The method best suited for your business partly depends on your business category.
Businesses in the micro and small business categories only have to file a limited set of financial statements. If you only file a few financial statements each year, you can use SBR, but you can also enter them manually via the online service for filing your financial statements yourself (only in Dutch).
Medium and large companies have to file more extensive financial statements. For these companies, it is quicker and easier to use SBR. To do so, you will need suitable software and a PKIoverheid certificate. If your company is medium-sized, but you are not equipped with SBR software, you can draw up an XBRL annual financial statement and file it using the KVK XBRL tool (only in Dutch).
Advantages
Filing with SBR is a quick and easy process that ensures good quality. After filing, you will immediately receive confirmation in your software and e-mail, without having to wait for processing by KVK and publication of the financial statements in the Business Register. Moreover, as this is an automated process, the likelihood of errors (for instance in additions or in the KVK number) is significantly reduced.
Use the correct KVK number
Be careful to use the correct KVK number when filing via SBR. An incorrect KVK number may have unpleasant consequences:
- You think you have files your financial statements, but they cannot be found under your KVK number in the Business Register;
- The company or organisation that the KVK number belongs to is unable to file their own statements, because there is a file already there.
Switching to SBR
All information about switching to SBR is available on the SBR website of the Central government (only in Dutch), where you will also find a software check and a practical step-by-step plan (only in Dutch).
FAQ
You can submit financial statements using SBR for every company that is required to file. You file financial statements using SBR for the business categories micro, small, medium, and large.
If your financial statement has not been adopted yet, you can replace it with a more recent non-adopted financial statement, or with the adopted financial statement.
You cannot replace an adopted financial statement, once you have submitted it. Does an adopted financial statement contain grave errors? In that case, you can file a declaration of disavowal (désaveuverklaring) in the Business Register. The adopted financial statement will remain on record. KVK is not allowed to remove financial statements once they are published, unless the publication error lies with KVK.
There are no charges for filing your financial stements via SBR. But the software you use, and the PKIOverheid certificate do cost money. How much depends on several factors, such as which reporting software you use. And you may need a filing module - unless your software provider has one built in. Consult your software provider to find out.
All in all you will need to pay for the software, either with or without a filing module, and the PKIOverheid certificate.
There are several possible causes for an error message. We cannot list them all, but we do have a few tips.
- Check the KVK number, is it correct? Does it exist?
- Check if an adopted financial statement has already been submitted for this financial year.
- Some software does not support special characters in financial statements. If this is the case, contact your software supplier.
- Check the error message using the (Dutch) documentatie over de Nederlandse Taxonomie (NT).
The moment KVK receives your financial stements, a number of checks is automatically performed. If the result is in order, you will receive a notification via Digipoort that the statements have been received.
If we cannot process the financial stements, you will receive an error message. After you have corrected the error(s), you can re-file the statements.
Last updated on 1 February 2022
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