Legal or natural persons with the obligation to submit their accounts in accordance with the standard chart of accounts (plan comptable normalisé - PCN) have to prepare their accounts on the platform for the electronic gathering of financial data (eCDF) prior to submitting their accounts to the Trade and Companies Register (RCS).

This online platform is managed by the State, and is used to prepare the electronic filing of structured accounting data with the RCS on standardised forms regarding:

• the balance sheet;
• the profit and loss accounts;
• the account balance taken from the standard chart of accounts;

Who is concerned

Preliminary steps

In order to use the eCDF platform, users must first:

• obtain and activate a professional LuxTrust card or professional signing stick;
• send an eCDF user application – annual financial statements to the eCDF Helpdesk, indicating how the financial data will be submitted:
  • using the standard PDF forms available on the platform; and/or
  • using am XML file transfer interface from an accounting tool.

Following these tests, the "system user account manager" will be given access to:

• the eCDF platform;
• the internal-users management application (CIGUE), which will allow the account manager to create access accounts for their colleagues;
• and to the client management application, which allows the account manager to select the businesses on whose behalf they are acting.

How to proceed

Obligations

Businesses which are subject to the standard chart of accounts (PCN) must:

• prepare and approve their accounts in electronic format on the platform for the electronic gathering of financial data (Plateforme électronique de Collecte des Données Financières – eCDF);
• before filing them electronically with the Trade and Companies Register (Registre de Commerce et des Sociétés – RCS).

Electronic approval of accounting records on eCDF

The standardisation procedure using the eCDF platform is aimed at the following financial documents:

• the balance sheet;
• the profit and loss accounts;
• the account balance.

These accounting documents form the accounting package grouping together all the documents which are required for the annual accounts of a business for a given financial year.

The preparation of the accounting documents on the eCDF platform is carried out using standardised forms.

The eCDF platform offers 2 possibilities to the declarant:

• either entering the financial data using the standardised forms (PDF) which are available on the eCDF platform;
• or the transmission of the data in XML files generated by the declarant's accounting tool.

Electronic filing of the accounting package with the RCS

When the accounting data has been approved on the eCDF platform, the business must file the accounting package (structured financial statements and other non-structured documents) electronically with the Trade and Companies Register.

The Luxembourg Business Registers (LBR) will then automatically retrieve the structured financial data from the eCDF platform.

Data archiving by the Central Balance Sheet Unit

The structured and standardised financial data will then be archived in electronic form by the Central Balance Sheet Unit (Centrale des bilans).

The Central Balance Sheet Unit will:

• make the financial data available to other administrative bodies (Inland Revenue, VAT, etc.) so that businesses no longer have to send their financial data to various different administrations;
• make the financial data available to third parties (creditors, competitors and any other interested third party) within the legal limits;
• make financial analysis records available at a later stage.

Forms / Online services

Who to contact