Launch the wizard

There is no precondition to access the non-logged in version of the SME wizard. It can be accessed anonymously from the public part of the Funding & Tenders portal, after selecting SME Self-assessment tool from the Guidance & documents section of the main menu: 

Click on Wizard from the left-side menu, fill in the organisation's name and then press on Start SME self-assessment:

Knowing if the organisation qualifies as an SME or not, you can decide if you want to request it and go through the validation process. The Wizard is anonymous and available to everybody, even if you are not logged in, the data is not registered nor followed-up.

Language selection

To change the default (English) language of the SME wizard, click on the language selector icon located in the top-right side of the F&T portal. The language selector is displayed, where all the official EU languages are available. Choose a different language here and the system displays a confirmation message, stating that the translation to the requested language is provided by automated translation and if content not available in the requested language, it will be presented in English. The page, where you can start the wizard in the requested language, is displayed.

Fill in the wizard

The first screen includes recommendations on information you need to be familiar with before completing the questionnaire, such as the European Commission's SME definition, and to have the necessary financial documents, where you find all the information to complete the questionnaire. On the right side of the page you also have a glossary explaining the financial terms used in the questionnaire.

You can start filling in the questionnaire. The information filled in will not be stored, it is just a simple calculator that has a result.

Adding data about current organisations

You will be asked first to fill in information concerning your organisation. Each answer triggers a different set of questions.

You will reach the end of this first section when you are presented with the Next button. Click on it in order to check your input. If you detect an error, please correct the relevant field. Otherwise, you can go to the following step of the questionnaire.

If the calculation based on your inputs shows that your organisation is not an SME, the 2^nd step of the wizard will be skipped and you will arrive directly on step 3.

You have the possibility to go back to the previous step of the questionnaire by clicking the Previous button.

In case you want to leave the wizard, pres  on the Quit button. You can launch again the wizard from the public part of the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, pressing on the button .

Adding Shareholder(s) to the current organisation

In the second step, the system will ask you to enter information concerning the "family tree" of your organisation.

You have to indicate here the existence of "Shareholders" related to your organisation. You will secondly be asked to fill in information concerning these shareholders, if any:

When adding shareholder(s), make sure that you enter the totality of the shares (i.e. 100%).
To help you provide only relevant information, the question will indicate, each time, the categories (with minimum percentages) of the entities whose data contribute to the calculation. It is, thus, very important to carefully read the different options before clicking on .

Next, a popup window appears and you will be asked to enter information concerning the shareholder (name of the entity, whether it is a legal/natural person, public/private and if it belongs to one of the investors categories); refer to Using consolidated accounts in case you wish to use them. Click on OK when done:

The data filled in appears in the main page also. In our example, we add a shareholder holding 75% named ‘test shareholder 1’:

In case there are no (or no more) shareholder(s) to be added (from one of the listed categories), click to complete the ownership structure of the current entity. In this case, the system will create a "Minor Shareholders" category in the ownership structure. In our example Minor Shareholders will hold 25%. The added Shareholder(s) will be visible in the overview of the "family tree":

As a rule, data entered for the shareholder(s) should be related to the same accounting period than the one previously entered for your organisation.

Adding Participation(s) to the current organisation

Once you have completed the Shareholders section, the system will ask you to enter information concerning your Participation(s). You will therefore thirdly be asked to provide information about Participation(s):

Also in this case, the question will indicate every time what is the minimum percentage of Participation that you need to declare.
When you click on , a popup window about these Participations appears and you will be asked to enter information concerning Participation(s). Once this information is filled in, click OK. In our example, you will have to add the company "test participation 1" is indicated as owned at 80% by ‘sme test’:

The Participation(s) added will be visible in the overview of the "family tree":

When all the Participations are added, or in case there are no other relevant participations, click to move to the next step. 

Generally, data entered for participations should match the same accounting period than the one previously entered for your organisation.

Adding Relationship(s) to the current organisation

Once you have completed the Participation(s) section, the system will ask you to enter information concerning your Relationship(s). You will therefore be asked to provide information about Relationship(s):

You can click on the  button and enter the information related to this entity. A popup window about these Relationships appears and you will be asked to enter information concerning Relationship(s).

Once this information is filled in, click OK. In our example, you will have to add the company "test relationship 1" is indicated as owned by ‘sme test’:

If there are none or no more relevant Relationships to be added, click on the  button to move to the next step. The Relationship(s) added will be visible in the overview of the "family tree".

Any added shareholder/participation/relationship can be edited or deleted from the corresponding action menu.

Each time you add an entity to the “family tree”, the wizard calculates the cumulated data. You will not be able to add more entities and you will be redirected to step 3 of the wizard when, after validation of the last added entity, the aggregated data exceeds the SME definition.

Adding data for partner organisations

Once you have added a participant organisation, you will be asked to repeat the same exercise for all the entities you indicated as belonging to the "family tree".

In other words, you will complete again steps 5, 6 and 7 for each entity listed in the "family tree":

You have the possibility to go back to the previous step of the questionnaire by clicking the Previous button. You can leave the questionnaire by clicking the Quit button. You can launch again the wizard from the public part of the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, pressing on the button .

You will reach the end of this second section when you are presented with the Next button. Click on it in order to go to the following step of the questionnaire:

Edit data for a company

After adding an entity, you can edit the data at any time by clicking Edit from the dropdown menu.
For this purpose, the popup window will reappear and enable you to edit the information you provided previously: legal name, percentage, and financial data.

Edit Shareholder(s), Participation(s) and Relationship(s)

You can update the information related to a Shareholder, Participation or any Relationship, by pressing on the three dots corresponding to the relevant section and then select Edit from the dropdown menu.

A popup window appears with the data previously entered and you will be able to modify it. Click on OK to save the changes made.

To delete a Shareholder, Participation or any Relationship, you can click the three dots corresponding to the relevant section and then select Delete from the dropdown menu. Please note, every time you delete an entity, all relationships created for that entity will also be deleted.

A popup window will appear, you can confirm the removal of the Shareholder, Participation or Relationship by pressing OK.

When an assessment has been completed, new items appear in the dropdown list, giving also the possibility to add a shareholder, participation or relationship.

If you forgot to add a Shareholder, Participation or a Relationship, you can do it at this stage by clicking of the corresponding Add option to the appropriate shareholder, participation or relationship.

Finish SME self assessment

In the third step of the wizard, you will see a read-only version of the organisation tree.

You have the possibility to go back to the previous step of the questionnaire by clicking the Previous button. You can leave the questionnaire by clicking the Quit button.

You have to make a few declarations, tick the two checkboxes. After this, the Submit button becomes available:

Clicking on Submit, a popup window appears where you have to confirm the submission, pressing on OK:

Ready for results

Once all the necessary information is entered and submitted, the "Final report" page appears.

If the result of the calculation is that the organisation does not qualify as an SME, this report also specifies under the Reasons section, which criteria has exceeded the SME definition.

Now is the time to check that all the information provided is correct. You can do so by reviewing it on the page:

You also have the possibility to Download the report:

After your review, click Finish. You will be redirected to the Portal, where you can restart the SME wizard for an organisation.

Additional information about specific situations

Using Consolidated Accounts

Every time you are asked to enter financial data for a given entity, you have the option of using consolidated accounts. The use of consolidated accounts allows you to provide financial data for a group of companies at once. After selecting this option, you have to indicate whether the selected company is preparing consolidated accounts for a group (is the parent company) or if its accounts are included in consolidated accounts prepared by another company (parent company). When using consolidated accounts, only the parent company will have to provide financial (consolidated) data.

Important: Your organisation will always have to provide individual financial data, even if you are using Consolidated Accounts.

It can happen that, at the end of the process, some entities remain without a parent company: If so, a message will list these entities and the parent companies (if existing).
You will be able to fix this by performing one of the following actions:

• Select (by clicking the Edit option in the actions menu) one of the parent companies and link it to one or more of the listed entities);
• Select (by clicking the Edit option in the actions menu) one of these entities and link it to a parent company;
• Select (by clicking the Edit option in the actions menu) one of these entities, and provide individual financial data (after deselecting the consolidated options).

Filling in the wizard as an affiliate

If you are an affiliate to a mother company, and you wish to use the consolidated accounts of the group your company belongs to, select Yes to the corresponding question. If your organisation is not the ultimate parent company in the consolidated accounts, you must then select No when answering the question Is <company name> the parent company of this group?

Then, you provide the figures of the individual accounts of your organisation:

If you provide individual figures that exceed the SME thresholds (as in the example below where the staff is less than 250 employees) the tool blocks the advancement and redirects you to a screen on which only Quit as an option is available:

Please note that for affiliates, it is necessary to add their mother company as your shareholder, in order to provide the figures from the consolidated accounts, you will first encode its shareholder, by clicking on the corresponding blue button:

If the applicant’s shareholder is the parent company in the group and you wish to use consolidated accounts, you must specify which entities are included in the consolidation. In our case, it must assign as child company the applicant Test. In such manner, the individual account of the applicant is not counted twice.

If the individual data is below the SME thresholds, the entity can continue by encoding the data of its shareholders/participations. In the above example, the applicant has a shareholder which is the parent company of the group and a participation.

Tips and tricks

1. GET PREPARED. Prepare the latest financial accounts of all the relevant organisations and keep them at hand while entering data in the SME Self-Assessment. As a recommendation, it is very helpful to prepare a diagram that shows the relationships between your organisation and the other relevant organisations in its ownership structure. You are asked to declare the following financial data: Total Annual Balance Sheet, Annual Turnover, Currency used, Staff Headcount and Date of Closure of the financial period.
2. Always STAY FOCUSED on the current question and follow the corresponding instructions.
3. WHAT AM I BEING ASKED? When you answer the questions, always pay attention to the Current Organisation – this is the organisation that you are expected to enter data for (having the focus on the screen).
4. READ CAREFULLY the complete question. Some questions might look familiar, yet they might address different aspects.
5. RELEVANT INFORMATION ONLY - The tool will not ask you and will not let you enter data which is not relevant for self-assessment purposes.
6. NO DUPLICATES - Make sure you are not adding an organisation that you have already mentioned.
7. OVERVIEW - You can review your added organisations and their situation in the step 3, Validate and submit.
8. FORGOT SOMETHING? Step 2-SME ownership and links is the place where you can re-edit or correct data already entered, using the actions menu next to each organisation (edit, delete).
9. READY TO SUBMIT? The tool will invite you to submit your data once all required information is encoded for all the organisations indicated. It is then time to check that all data is correct.