co-acc

co-acc is an accounting practice on Avenue Adolphe Lacomblé in Schaerbeek, registered under enterprise number 0632.846.806. The firm is set apart by a choice it owns from its home page: its site is written in English, and it addresses first of all foreign companies opening or running an activity in Belgium.

Clients arriving from outside

The firm describes its mission as taking over its clients' administrative tasks so they can focus on their core business "without having to think about all the local procedures". That last phrase captures the heart of the difficulty: a foreign director knows their sector, rarely the Belgian filing calendar, the workings of the business counter or the rules for filing annual accounts.

Setting up the Belgian structure

The legal and tax department accompanies clients, the site says, from the creation of the Belgian company or branch and then through the various administrative steps. The distinction between the two matters: a subsidiary is a Belgian legal person filing its own accounts and falling under corporate income tax; a branch remains an extension of the foreign company, with different publication obligations and a tax treatment that depends on the applicable double taxation treaty. The choice is made at the outset and is hard to undo.

Payroll, at two levels

On the social security side the firm explicitly offers two arrangements: acting as an intermediary between the client and their social secretariat, or taking over the whole administration and running payroll end to end. That gradation is worth knowing. In Belgium the calculation of pay almost always goes through an accredited social secretariat, and the practical question is not who computes but who prepares the data, who checks the result and who answers when a joint committee changes its scale.

Reporting sized for a group

The firm announces tailor-made reports and names three kinds: cross-border reporting, consolidated reporting and monthly overviews. That is the vocabulary of a group rather than of a sole trader. A Belgian subsidiary keeps its books under the Belgian framework, but its parent expects figures in its own format and on its own rhythm. Producing both from a single set of entries is conversion work, not a simple extract.

Where the office sits

The firm places its own location against three landmarks: the European Commission, NATO headquarters and Brussels airport. The choice of landmarks fits the clientele described. The Schaerbeek-Evere-Zaventem axis concentrates representations, liaison offices and subsidiaries of foreign groups, a population of businesses whose accounting is simple in volume and complicated in regime.

The accreditation

co-acc presents itself as a certified member of the institute of accountants and tax experts, in the form of a civil company. That institute is today the ITAA, formed in 2019 by the merger of the IEC and the IPCF, whose public register lets anyone check in under a minute whether a professional is registered and in what capacity. Registration requires professional indemnity insurance, a code of conduct, monitored continuing education and, since 2020, a written engagement letter with every client.