Summary
The improvement of business performance affects all levels and all stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, partners and shareholders.
To help improve the performance of your business, Wallonia offers "business growth and development" cheques to support the company's growth and development strategy, in particular by encouraging methods and practices to improve the company's organisational performance, as well as its commercial performance and marketing policy, through costs relating to:
Services to improve or develop organisational methods, by targeting operational excellence in the following areas:
- financial management;
- management of production and logistics flows;
- quality management;
- management of safety standards;
- environmental management, excluding fire studies and sustainable-development strategies;
- internal management, including, in particular, HR management, the development of internal skills, company governance, organisation and internal communications;
- industrial policy, including, in particular, the investment and production policy;
- the implementation of an Industry 4.0 process ;
- legal advice for commercial matters, including, in particular, the establishment of distribution and licensing contracts;
- legal and financial advice as part of technology transfer.
2. Services to improve or develop commercial performance in the following areas:
- marketing policy, e-marketing and commercial development, including, in particular, the performance or purchase of market studies, the establishment of a commercial and communications strategy, the definition of a business model or market positioning and the preparation of a business plan;
- commercial differentiation of products or services, including the development of new business models;
- development or improvement of the external communications policy, excluding implementation costs;
- design, in particular, of new products, redesign of existing products, design of services, design of packaging, textile design, etc;
- consultancy and support fees for innovation management, in particular through the use of specific innovation-management methods. These may include the development of a viable minimum product.
The “company support, growth and development” cheque provides support for growth, which allows for the refining of the action plan and support for the director to implement said action plan.
Key points
You can receive this cheque if:
- You are a company, an individual or a legal entity performing an economic activity, are registered with the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises (BCE) and you have your registered office located in Wallonia. Your business must be an SME, namely a business employing fewer than 250 people and with annual turnover below €50 million or a balance sheet total that does not exceed €43 million.
- Your business is not part of an excluded sector, based on the de minimis regulation (fishing, aquaculture, primary production of agricultural products)
You must use an approved service provider.
The total amount of public intervention granted per recipient over three years in the context of “growth” cheques is limited to €70,000.
- For the "business growth and development diagnosis" cheque, the maximum amount of public intervention per recipient is €20000 over three years.
- For the “business growth and development support” cheque, the maximum amount of public intervention per recipient is €50,000 over three years.
Over three consecutive years, you can combine the two cheques mentioned above, each within its own limit, up to the theme limit.
You must not have reached the de minimis threshold:
- Under the de minimis aid regulation, some companies are not eligible to receive this cheque.
- This regulation sets a maximum threshold of €200,000 for public aid over a three-year period.
- However, this threshold is €100,000 for companies engaged in the transport of goods or passengers by road.
- If you have exceeded this threshold, you may not obtain this cheque.
In addition, you must not have reached the maximum public intervention amount of €100,000 per calendar year for the integrated business aid portfolio.
In detail
You can receive this cheque if:
- You are an SME, namely a business employing fewer than 250 people and with annual turnover below €50 million or a balance sheet total that does not exceed €43 million.
- Your business is not part of an excluded sector, based on the de minimis regulation (fishing, aquaculture, primary production of agricultural products).
You are a company, an individual or a legal entity performing an economic activity, are registered with the Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises (BCE) and you have your registered office located in Wallonia. Your business must be an SME, namely a business employing fewer than 250 people and with annual turnover below €50 million or a balance sheet total that does not exceed €43 million.
You must use an approved service provider.
The service must be performed within 12 months of receiving the cheque.
You must not have reached the de minimis threshold:
- Under the de minimis aid regulation, some companies are not eligible to receive this cheque.
- This regulation sets a maximum threshold of €200,000 for public aid over a three-year period.
- However, this threshold is €100,000 for companies engaged in the transport of goods or passengers by road.
- If you have exceeded this threshold, you may not obtain this cheque.
In addition, you must not have reached the maximum public intervention amount of €100,000 per calendar year for the integrated business aid portfolio.
The Walloon region funds up to 50% of the cost of the service, excluding VAT.
The remaining costs and the VAT are borne by the company.
Registration on the platform:
- In order to use the platform, all users must create a “citizen” account beforehand.
- To do this, the user can register via the registration module available on the home page, or activate the account via an email that is sent following the creation of their account by a third party (service providers, contacts at a previously registered company, etc.).
- Registration/activation is only possible via the secure authentication module with an electronic identity card (eiD Belgium). This process is mandatory.
The application process:
- The subsidy application may be filed by you directly, but it can also be filed by your service provider on your behalf.
For the first application submitted via the platform, we invite recipients to contact an approved/accredited service provider of their choice directly. They will then take care of the application process for them.
In fact, during your first cheque application, it is not possible to link an account to a company on the platform, because it does not exist in our database yet.
The only authentic source that will allow us to link the contact to a recipient is an approved service provider, with whom the company will be bound by a contractual relationship.
Therefore, it is the service provider who creates the company in the system, upon submitting the first requested cheque under the service agreement, and they will vouch for the identity of the recipient and their contact person.
Subsequently, when submitting later applications, it is then possible for the recipient to file the application for the cheque themselves.
- This application is submitted solely via the platform www.cheques-entreprises.be and will be processed electronically.
- In the context of this subsidy application, you must conclude a service agreement (generated by the platform) with an approved service provider for the requested cheque, which will be provided upon submitting the file and the signed subsidy application, as well as various external documents, or documents generated by the platform, and variants based on the type of cheque requested (“de minimis” declaration, “SME test” declaration, prior diagnosis, certificate from a third-party organisation, etc.)
Validation of the application:
- In accordance with the confidence principle, the administration proceeds to examine the admissibility of the application, that is, to check the completeness of the documents that have been submitted. This check must be carried out within five working days. After this time, the application for aid will be considered admissible.
Payment of the share:
- When the subsidy is granted, the Region will ask you to pay the sum you get to keep, based on the level of public intervention. This share must be paid within 30 days; otherwise the file will be deemed inadmissible.
- Once the payment of the share has been received, an electronic cheque that is equal to the total amount of the aid will be placed in your electronic portfolio, which can be consulted on the web platform. The service can then begin.
Service:
- It must be carried out within the period determined.
Payment for the service:
- At the end of the service, the service provider sends their invoice and a service report via the platform www.cheques-entreprises.be.
- You then validate the service provider’s invoice and the report via the same online platform within 15 days. If validation does not take place by the deadline, the invoice and the report will be deemed valid and the file will be submitted to the administration.
- After submission, the administration checks the file within 15 working days, before paying the service provider. If validation does not take place by the deadline, the application for aid will be considered admissible.
- You pay the VAT directly to the service provider.
Requests for additional information:
- When the application is processed by the administration – both during the introduction (awarding) and closing (settlement) of the application – the administration may send you a request for additional information, if it deems that the elements in its possession do not allow it to decide on the admissibility of the application.
- You, or your service provider, must respond within one month from the date on which the information is requested; otherwise the application will be deemed inadmissible.
A posteriori checks:
- Your application may be checked after the fact by the Walloon Region, based on random sampling.
Disputes:
- If the decision is disputed, you can contact the Business Cheques team or file an appeal, in accordance with the conditions available at this link.
- Ministerial decree – “Internationalisation” theme
- Decree of 21 December 2019 regarding the granting of aids, by means of an integrated aid portfolio in the Walloon region, to project leaders and small and medium enterprises, in order to cover services promoting entrepreneurship or growth, and constituting a database of authentic sources related to the integrated portfolio
- Decree from the Walloon government of 23 February 2017 regarding the execution of chapters 1, 3 and 4 of the Decree of 21 December 2019 regarding the granting of aids, by means of an integrated aid portfolio in the Walloon region, to project leaders and small and medium enterprises, in order to cover services promoting entrepreneurship or growth, and constituting a database of authentic sources related to the integrated portfolio
- Ministerial decree – “Creation” theme
- Ministerial decree – “Growth” theme
- Ministerial decree – “Digital” theme
- Ministerial decree – “Innovation” theme
- Ministerial decree – “Transfer” theme
- Ministerial decree – “Circular Economy” theme
- Modification of Ministerial decree – “Circular Economy” theme
