A. Armonaitė: From now on it will only take a few minutes to declare the status of a small enterprise
Minister of the Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė presented to the business community a digitalised tool for declaring the status of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), which will help them to complete their SME declaration faster and much easier. This tool, initiated by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation (EIMIN), is now available to businesses.
"One of our top priorities is to digitise the public sector and reduce the administrative burden on businesses as much as possible. This is exactly what the tool for filling in the SME declaration initiated by the EIMIN team will contribute to, as it will reduce the data transfer to a few minutes and ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the data," said Minister of the Economy and Innovation A. Armonaitė at the press conference.
The need for this tool has grown with the emergence of a number of financial support instruments that require companies to prove their SME status in order to benefit from them. The SME status declaration form is submitted to state aid administrators together with other documents required for applications for state funding. The use of the digitised tool is not compulsory and the normal declaration form will continue to be used.
"The Centre of Registers manages key national data and develops advanced technological solutions based on this data. This SME tool not only allows companies to save time when filling in application forms that are not easy to understand at first glance, but also ensures that the data submitted will be accurate and up to date, as the tool automatically combines the data on the company, its shareholders and financial information contained in the registers and systems," said Adrijus Jusas, General Director of the Centre of Registers.
It is estimated that the submission of data using the new tool significantly reduces the time needed to complete the SME declaration. If the data is submitted by an entrepreneur with no links to other business units, the process can take up to 5 minutes. If the ownership structure of the enterprise is complex and the enterprise has submitted the data correctly to the information systems, it can take up to 15 minutes, and up to 25 minutes if the data is not submitted correctly.
In the survey conducted so far, respondents have reported that it takes them between 1 and 10 hours to complete a standard electronic SME status declaration form, with the most common time taken being between 1-2 hours.
"We are very pleased with the launch of this tool, as declarations are the first step for businesses to receive financial support for investment. We hope that this process will not stop and that, in addition to the SME declaration, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation will continue to monitor and look for ways to simplify bureaucratic processes and reduce the administrative burden on businesses. It is important that small and medium-sized enterprises have easier access to capital and can take advantage of the opportunities offered by the state more quickly and without additional obstacles. This is especially important now, when borrowing is difficult due to high interest rates and tightening credit conditions," said Vidmantas Janulevičius, President of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (LCCI).
Prior to the development of this digitised tool, a survey was conducted in which SMEs identified lack of time, lack of clarity of the existing table and transfer of data from related and partner companies as the main difficulties in filling in the regular SME status declaration form. Some 67% of respondents indicated that they would use a digitised paid-for service.
This tool is available to businesses via the Centre of Registers self-service by logging in to the Register of Legal Entities.