In short
- Everything starts with the annual accounts a company files itself at the National Bank.
- The verdict compares a company with its own sector, using the National Bank's figures.
- Verdict, credit limit and valuation are a Creya method: an assessment, not advice.
- If something is missing, we say so instead of guessing.
- The formula of every ratio and every step is shown for each company in the analysis.
1.Where the figures come from
National Bank of Belgium: the annual accounts companies file themselves at the Central Balance Sheet Office. From them we take the amounts, the directors and the filing date.
Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (FPS Economy): name, address, legal form, activity and whether a company is active, stopped or bankrupt.
Peppol Directory: whether a company can receive electronic invoices.
We fetch new data every day. Every figure shows which annual accounts it is based on and when they were filed. A company has 7 months after its year end to file them, so the latest figures are always a snapshot.
2.The verdict: Healthy, Watch out or Risk
We calculate some twenty ratios and amounts in four areas: profitability, solvency, liquidity and activity. Where the National Bank defines a ratio, we use exactly its formula.
Each ratio is compared with the same sector and the same type of accounts, using the quartiles the National Bank publishes. A ratio in the weakest quarter of the sector is critical; below the middle it is a point of attention. For ratios without a sector figure we use fixed limits.
Those assessments combine into a health score from 0 to 1. Accounts that were filed late add to it. Below 0.25 the verdict is Healthy, up to 0.5 Watch out, from 0.5 Risk.
With every verdict we show the three main reasons, so you see why. Small companies don't have to publish their revenue: ratios that need revenue then don't count, so nobody is penalised for their type of accounts.
3.The credit limit
We simulate a 5-year investment loan (in the analysis you can also pick 3, 7 or 10 years) and look for the largest amount for which the company still passes four tests: operating profit covers interest and repayments, interest is amply covered, enough equity remains, and cashflow is enough for the long-term debt.
The limit is also never higher than 60% of total assets and 75% of the company's value. For what you can give as a supplier, we subtract the trade payables the company already has.
No limit if operations make a loss or cashflow is negative, if the latest accounts are more than 2 years old, or if the company is stopped, bankrupt or dissolved according to the KBO.
It is an estimate of borrowing capacity, not a guarantee and not a trade-credit limit. Check the accounts and your own experience with the customer before you give credit.
4.Valuation
Multiples: operating profit before depreciation (EBITDA) and profit, times what companies in the same sector typically fetch in a takeover in Belgium. We show the plain value and, separately and marked, a value that takes into account how healthy the company is.
DCF: the cash flows the company can generate in the coming years, discounted to today. The discount rate uses Professor Damodaran's sector betas for Western Europe. You set growth, risk-free rate and market premium yourself.
Net asset value: the equity from the balance sheet, with corrections you fill in, for example for buildings worth more than on the balance sheet.
A valuation is always the result of assumptions. It is not a valuation by an expert and not an offer.
5.Comparing with the sector
For the verdict we use the National Bank's sector figures. On the sector page we also calculate the median and quartiles ourselves, per NACE code, year and type of accounts, from all the accounts we have.
We only show a sector figure from 11 companies, and we say how many companies it is based on. The newest year fills up during the year, because companies have 7 months to file.
6.Explanations with AI
When a company you follow files new accounts, an AI model (Claude by Anthropic) writes in a few sentences what changed. It only receives the figures we already calculated, never data about you.
We check every text automatically: every number must come from our figures, and the text may contain no instructions or links. If a check fails, we show our own standard text. No person reads along, so the text is always marked. The advice under "What you can do" is written by us, not by the AI.
7.What we don't know
Only a PDF: some companies file their accounts only as a PDF. We can't read figures from it, so we give no verdict.
No revenue: small companies don't have to publish revenue. Then we show the gross margin, and ratios on revenue are not available. We never estimate revenue.
Other types: for non-profits and other deviating accounts we don't make an analysis yet.
What happened after the accounts: annual accounts are a picture of the end of the financial year. Recent events only show if the KBO already lists them, such as a bankruptcy.
Mistakes: annual accounts can contain mistakes, and so can our calculations. That is why we always show the source and the date.
8.Spotted a mistake?
Is a figure, director or address wrong? Click "Report a mistake" on the company's page, or email us at info@creya.be with the enterprise number and what is wrong. We check it, fix what went wrong on our side, and report a mistake in the source to the source itself.