1. Objective and Scope
The objective of this procedure is to describe the specific actions required when starting a new year to be carried out by the BFC Admin team.
2. BFC Production quarterly backup (subject to Internal control)
Beginning of January, BFC IT team asks BFC Admin team to inform the dates for the BFC production database quarterly backups (performed by AWS team).
In order to be able to determine the appropriate dates, BFC Admin should consult Syensqo's Financial Calendar published in https://www.syensqo.com/en/investors/financials web site - Investors → Financials → Agenda
and propose as back up dates the week end before each quarter/year earnings announcement.
3. BFC Administration calendar
The BFC Admin Calendar is a planning for the year covering all BFC Admin activities as well as Group's deadlines and milestones related to reporting cycles. Other events, such as Group financial press releases/dashboard publications or quarterly back ups of BFC Prod done by IT, should also be included in the calendar.
3.1 Calendar
This calendar must be prepared at the beginning of January and aligned with GAR Financial Accounting Closing calendar as soon as it is available in GAR SYENSQO Aodocs.
To prepare the calendar the following methodology should be applied:
- 1st - Identification of weekends and Belgium public holidays;
- 2nd - Identification of key dates for BFC Admin activities applying the rules below:
WD-9 - ACTUAL1-TAX package generation - Q1, Q2 and Q3
WD-4 - ACTUAL2 Period opening to allow GAR Conso team to anticipate the posting of its top entries - monthly
WD-3 - GAR List check - to check there are no missing updates /missing info for the companies that have been acquired, merged, sold or liquidated in the last month - monthly
WD-2 - ACTUAL2 & ACTUAL1 & ACTUAL3 package generation - ACTUAL2 monthly, ACTUAL1 quarterly and ACTUAL3 quarterly in Q3 and Q4
WD-1 - ACTUAL(REEL) Exchange rates update - monthly
WD1 - Scopes + Consos definition + Consos runs scheduling update - monthly
WD1 - ACTUAL0 consos definition +consos runs scheduling update - quarterly
WD4 - ACTUAL2 publication (exception in December and January - WD5) - monthly
Hard Close Tax - package generation in the 2nd week and publication in the 3rd week of October - dates to be checked in GAR Financial Closing Calendar
ACT2 Switch HC/YE - around Dec. 15th - precise date to be validated in December with GAR Tax team
Quarterly back up - According to the dates communicated by BFC Admin to BFC IT team early January for the whole year
Group press releases - According to Financial Calendar /upcoming events announced in Syensqo Investor website
BFC Internal Controls - Monthly pilotings & deletions review / quarterly review of sensitive accesses
Once the calendar is ready or anytime there is a change it should be communicated/shared with BFC support external providers. Calendar has to be stored in GDrive folder here
3.2 Planning of packages generation
In addition to BFC Admin calendar, BFC Admin team creates a table listing packages generation dates for each Category of reporting cycles. This information is used by GAR in the timetable section of its Quarterly closing instructions.
The table/file should be published in GAR Syensqo Aodocs and named PACKAGE GENERATION PLANNING YYYY.
4. Creation of new Exchange rates file in GAR AODOC
Refer to the procedure for January is described in this section Beginning of the year (in January YYYY) - creation of the new file for year YYYY
5. Creation of new SIMULATION tables (Exc. Rates) in BFC
Refer to the procedure for January is described in this section Creation of SIMULATION tables and control on Y-1 Rates at the beginning of the Year (January)
6. Creation of ACTUAL0 category - pre-loading of F99
Refer to the procedure is described in this section REPORTING SETUP ACTUAL0 - Pre-loading of F99 at the beginning of the year
7. Cleaning of BFC scopes ACTUAL2 & ACTUAL0 for current Y year
Companies deconsolidated during Y-1 (sold, merged or liquidated) must be excluded from Y scopes.
BFC Admin should check if all the entities sold, merged or liquidated (SYENSQO structure file) have been automatically excluded in every first Y scopes for ACTUAL2 and ACTUAL0 categories.
- ACTUAL2 scopes: SYENSQO (01.YY), IFRS-FS-RHI (03.YY)
- ACTUAL0 scopes: SYENCONSO and SYENFULL (12.YY)
This is automatically done by BFC as long as the company has been declared as Non consolidated (NC) at closing in Y-1 scope and Y opening scope has been properly setup.
Example: The entities below will be automatically excluded from SYENFULL 2024.12 scope as deconsolidated end of Y-1 (2023.12)
Specific cases - DISCOP & AHFS companies:
- Those companies are fictive ones (no legal existence), used by GAR team to manage "Discontinued Operations (Discop)/ Assets Held For Sale (AHFS)"postings in Group FS
- Codes starting with Dxxxyyyy - used for both AHFS and (if applicable) Discop recognition:
- where xxx stands for the M&A related project code and yyyy stands for the period from which the Discop/AHFS treatment was decided
- Codes starting with 9xxx(x) - used to post the write back of depreciation in both BS and P&L
- where xxx stands for the M&A related project
- Example: DODYS2009 and 9ODYS - fictive companies associated to Odyssey M&A divestment recognized under AHFS and Discop in Solvay Group FS from September 2020 - final divestment occurred in April 202
- Once divestments have occurred in Y-1, theoretically they should be excluded from the Y scopes as no further top entries should be posted
- Their exclusion from the Y scopes must be confirmed by GAR Conso team following an initial proposal made by BFC Admin.
Below is described how this process should be done for ACTUAL0 scopes SYENCONSO and SYENFULL and at the same time how to get the initial set of companies for which ACTUAL0 packages should be generated in February.
1) In BFC_Top_SCO, create YY SYENCONSO and SYENFULL scopes by a save as from YY-1 scopes and put YY-1 scope as the opening scope.
2) Export these 2 new scopes to Excel
3) add 1 more sheet with the list of ACTUAL0 packages generated in Y-1 and name it Y ACT0 packs
4) add the following columns:
In SYENFULL scope? To search for this company in SYENFULL sheet using a VLOOKUP function (Y/N)
In SYENCONSO scope? To search for this company in SYENCONSO sheet using a VLOOKUP function (Y/N)
Y-1 package? Y "Yes" - for companies found in both scopes / N "No" - for companies NOT found in both scopes
5) Cross check in Syensqo structure file that the companies for which ACTUAL0 package will not be created are declared merged, sold or liquidated and put that justification in column comment
6) The Excel file should be stored here
8. Oxygen companies - Special process for January
The Oxygen companies are the entities for which reporting simplification measures are implemented for ACTUAL2.: packages are copied from previous period and published by BFC-Admin on non-quarter months.
For January, this procedure is slightly different as we cannot import P&L accounts and BS heading L12000-Profit/Loss from previous period/year.
The special procedure for January is described in this section Oxygen companies - Special procedure (January.YYYY)
9. "On demand" refresh of BFC Work_SCO database
Purpose of BFC Work_SCO database is to allow a safe testing of complex or sensitive customizing, ensuring it does not bring any regression. In such cases, usage of large actual data is required and BFC_Work_SCO (being a dump of BFC_Prod_SCO) is the place to do it without any impact on Production database.
BFC_Work_SCO database refresh can be requested to BFC IT team each time there is a need for updated/recent set of actual data for testing purposes.
Such refresh makes full sense beginning of the year when Year End Y-1 results are finalized and 1st reporting of the starting year (January one) is generated, allowing to get in BFC_Work_SCO the Y-1 source for Y openings. as well as 1st exercise of reporting for starting year
10. Business structures changes : Final wave with "activation/deactivation" prior to January reporting
Business structures management is entirely documented in a dedicated section Business Structures management in BFC SYENSQO.
Process of updates is organized yearly through a "3 steps / waves" cycle.
Wave 1 - October Y-1: 1st set of expected changes needed for Budget (Controlling cycle)
Wave 2 - December Y-1: 2nd set of changes (late answers from GBU's) / Creation of New objects in BFC
Wave 3 - end of January Y: Activation/Deactivation in BFC for Y reportings
- GO to be given by Corporate Controlling - when Year end Y-1 results finalized (usually achieved around end of January)
- BFC set up launched around January 25th to have few days before January Y reporting generation
- In this last round:
- "NEW" values removed to blank
- "OLD" values set up to block usage on Activity 1 & 2 not to be used anymore in Y+1 ACTUALS
- updates in hierarchies content (change of links)
- update of descriptions to add OLD when required
- Not forgetting impacts on Business users accesses: as Business accesses are based on GBU codes, any creation of a new GBU code is expected to require updates (new GBU code to be added) of accesses of Businesses users belonging to the new GBU
- Not forgetting impacts on Filters from Dimension builder: such filters have been created to allow artificial combination of several GBU's (to keep track of historical business structures)
- Detailed procedure to manage the above steps illustrated in section:
END OF THE PROCEDURE