European business statistics : methodological manual for structural business statistics : 2024 edition

This manual on European Structural Business Statistics is an important milestone for SBS compilers in the European Statistical System. It complements the legislative framework for European Business Statistics with guidance on how to interpret it in a practical and ever-changing setting. While the essential concepts and definitions are laid down in law, the manual provides further guidance on how to turn theory into practice. SBS give a comprehensive insight into the structure of the business sector providing many indicators and detailed breakdowns. The raw data collected from businesses and administrative registers provide an input to the compilation of National Accounts. SBS have their own raison d'être because it allows users to access significantly more detailed information on the business sector than National Accounts. Member States have been producing SBS for many decades and the domain can generally be considered to be mature. Nevertheless, changes in the business sector, accounting rules, and newly available data sources require continued clarification, adaptation and development of the SBS methodological framework. This enables SBS compilers to produce SBS with increased efficiency and with the known high quality, also in today's changing business environment. In particular, the manual contains guidance for producing comparable and harmonised data across the EU Member States and the other countries of the European Economic Area. The manual covers a diverse set of topics ranging from the legal requirements to concepts, the data compilation process, metadata and the data transmission. It represents the experiences gained over many years and collects in one place the content of a number of documents of which most have been discussed in the SBS Working Group. It is a living reference document that is updated regularly as new topics are discussed by the SBS Working Group and best practices are identified. This is the second edition of the Manual, based on the first edition that was published in 2021. It contains seven new annexes showing the 'Structure of the national metadata reports', 'Eurostat validation rules', 'Data transmission and code lists', and the 'Confidentiality and flagging rules' for SBS, the 'Implementation of the 1% rule', and the treatment of 'Section K - Financial and insurance activities' in SBS. Moreover, minor corrections and a few additions to the first edition have been done where this was necessary.