Translation of balance sheets and cross-border worker files
from Tournai to Mouscron and Ath
Accountancy firms, brokers and branches handling income and assets that straddle the border. Balance sheets, loans, claims, cross-border payslips: Belgian headings made readable elsewhere.
1 h
To receive the costing
2
Readings on every document
24 h
Express on an accounting document
70+
Working languages
The paperwork the finance & insurance sector generates
Living in Tournai and working in France, or the other way round, is nothing unusual here: the border is ten kilometres away and Lille twenty-five. Accountancy practices across the district therefore build files in which two tax authorities face each other, each with its own forms, its own contribution headings and a double taxation treaty. Get one line of a French payslip wrong, and the inspector redoes the calculation his way.
Cross-border taxation
Tax residence certificates, French payslips, tax assessment notices and the documents the authority across the border asks for.
Annual accounts
Accounts filed with the National Bank, notes, the management report and papers written for a shareholder based elsewhere.
Banking files
Bank statements, balance certificates, credit deeds and leasing contracts put before a foreign institution.
Insurance
The insurance contract, special conditions, cover limits and the list of exclusions.
Claims and expert reports
Notification of a claim, the statement of fact, the adjuster's findings and the letter fixing compensation.
Career and pensions
Reconstructed career records, pension decisions and certificates from a foreign social security fund.
The finance & insurance sector ten kilometres from France
One approximate balance sheet line, or an exclusion of cover rendered roughly, is enough to disqualify a document. Our linguists work with the Belgian chart of accounts in front of them, know the headings of the filing at the National Bank and the vocabulary of the IFRS standards. Above all they know that insurance categories do not overlap from one country to the next: a contract followed too closely word by word ends up describing cover that exists under neither legal system.
Cross-border employment gives this sector its local face. Thousands of people live on one side of the line and work on the other, companies invoice in both countries, self-employed people declare part of their income elsewhere. Payslips, employer's statements, posting forms, tax assessment notices and double taxation treaties therefore turn up at the border constantly, and Belgian tax headings do not match the French ones term for term. Destined for a bank, a tax authority or a foreign insurer, those papers often call for the sworn version, with legalisation of the signature at FPS Justice when the receiving country requires it.
Handling follows one short rule: access limited to the account manager and the linguist, no copy circulating without reason, and everything erased after delivery as soon as you ask.
- Balance sheet, income statement, notes to the accounts
- Tax assessment notice and tax return
- Bank statement and certificate of balance
- Credit, mortgage loan, finance lease
Situations that need someone in the room
There comes a point where the client has to ask their question, and where the answer shapes the rest of the file. That is what the interpreter is for.
Bank appointments
Opening an account, taking a credit application through, explaining a rate or an early repayment clause.
Loss adjustment
A site visit and a joint meeting with the policyholder or with an expert appointed in France.
Boards and general meetings
A sitting of a management body or a committee where one of the members does not follow the discussion in French.
Audit and closing
Exchanges with an inspector or an auditor, where nothing may be added and nothing left out.
Watch out for the false friends between the two social security systems. The headings on a French payslip, the contributions, the ceilings and even the names of the institutions have no Belgian twin, and the reverse is equally true. We keep the original heading, add the counterpart where one exists and refuse it where it does not: an inspector accepts an explanatory note, never an invented equivalence.
Four steps, from the photo to the document
One project manager keeps your finance & insurance file from start to finish: nothing gets lost between one contact and the next.
- 01
Send the document as it is
A phone photo will do, crooked framing included. Booking an interpreter instead? Give us the day, the address and the two languages in the room.
- 02
Price and delivery date in 1 h
The quote states the amount, the deadline and the route: sworn where an authority demands it, standard everywhere else. Nothing to pay, nothing to sign.
- 03
A linguist from the field takes over
Your text goes to someone who works with finance & insurance terminology daily, and a second person reads it through before anything is sent.
- 04
Delivery or on-site assignment
The document arrives by email; the stamped copy follows by registered post if a counter insists on the original. For a spoken assignment, the interpreter is there on the hour.
A cross-border file to be ready for the deadline?
Belgian chart of accounts wording, very few hands on the file, a costing inside the hour.
What changes once a finance & insurance file reaches us
The Belgian balance sheet structure holds
It is the headings that move into the recipient's language, not the structure. Where an item has no twin in their framework, we write that down in plain terms instead of filing it under the nearest heading.
Two pairs of eyes, no more
On a sensitive file only the project manager and the assigned translator open the documents. One message after delivery and the storage is cleared.
The right specialist, not the first one free
A specialised text goes to a linguist who works in that field. A short deadline does not suspend the rule, it only means searching faster.
Confidentiality put in writing
Anyone who opens your file has signed a confidentiality undertaking beforehand. Files sit on European infrastructure and are wiped the moment you ask in writing.
No line added afterwards
The figure you approve at the start is the one on the invoice. Revision, layout and delivery are already inside it, with nothing surfacing at the end.
The drive is not charged to you
Reaching Tournai, Mouscron, Ath, Lessines, Péruwelz, Comines-Warneton or Beloeil costs you nothing extra in travel.
Frequently asked questions
An employee lives here and works in France: what has to be translated?
Usually the tax residence certificate, the payslips and the certificates the other country's service asks for. Some counters accept a standard translation, others insist on the sworn version. Ask before ordering: the answer weighs on the deadline as much as on the amount.
Who translates annual accounts for a foreign group?
We do, and accountancy practices here ask for it regularly. We work from your filing with the National Bank and keep the numbering of the headings, so the foreign reader can set both versions side by side without losing the thread.
When does the sworn version become compulsory?
For internal reporting inside a group, never. Before a court, a notary or a foreign tax authority, yes, and legalisation of the signature at FPS Justice often comes with it. Tell us the exact destination: we settle that before quoting, not after delivery.
How do you protect sensitive figures?
A confidentiality undertaking signed by everyone involved, storage inside the European Union, access limited to those working on the file, deletion on written request. No publicly accessible translation tool enters the circuit at any stage.
Get your free quote within the hour
Send us your document or your date: firm price, precise deadline, no obligation. You then decide, with everything in front of you.