Executive Summary
The operational year 2020 was defined by administrative resilience and emergency digitalisation. Companies had to deploy **remote work** in weeks, manage the complexity of **ERTEs**, adapt their accounting processes to the treatment of COVID aid and moratoriums, and maintain business continuity under lockdown and restrictions. At BMC, operations, accounting and payroll teams worked without interruption to respond to an unprecedented demand for services.
The forced digitalisation imposed by the pandemic compressed into months an evolution that would normally have taken years. Clients who had already advanced their digitalisation processes were able to adapt more quickly and efficiently than those dependent on in-person or paper-based processes.
Key Highlights
ERTE management was the most demanded operational task of the year. BMC managed over 8,500 payrolls for ERTE-affected workers across client companies in diverse sectors. The complexity included: calculating contribution exemptions, coordinating with SEPE, managing mixed situations, and preparing documentation for employment maintenance commitments.
Accounting treatment of COVID aid required rigorous technical interpretation. The distinction between guarantees, grants and contribution bonuses was the subject of frequent consultations and divergent interpretations that the ICAC progressively clarified.
Emergency remote work transformed both clients’ internal processes and BMC’s own. Migration to cloud collaboration tools, secure remote access to management systems, and digitalisation of document workflows became immediate operational priorities.
Operations Analysis
Accounting and year-end close: The 2020 year-end close was particularly complex given the need to reflect the COVID impact in the accounts: asset impairments, contingent risk provisions, debt reclassifications, and memory disclosures about the pandemic effect.
Treasury and liquidity management: Cash became the most closely monitored operational metric of the year. BMC’s outsourced CFO and financial reporting services incorporated weekly liquidity tracking and management of the deferral maturity calendar as permanent service components.
Process digitalisation: The adoption of electronic signature systems, cloud ERP implementation and accounting digitalisation accelerated notably. Clients who had long postponed investment in digitalisation were forced to address it under emergency conditions.
Payroll Management in an Exceptional Year
The 2020 exercise generated unprecedented payroll situations: workers transitioning from active to full ERTE, then to partial ERTE, then back to active, in line with successive lockdowns and phased reopenings. Payroll management systems had to be adapted to handle these transitions, and personnel administration teams worked with a significantly higher operational load than normal.
People services and payroll management at BMC incorporated end-to-end ERTE cycle management — from filing the proceedings to monitoring commitments and managing the return to activity — as a standard service offering.
Changes in Accounting Standards
The ICAC published various clarifying consultations and resolutions on the accounting treatment of COVID effects: loan moratoriums, rent deferrals, aid and subsidies. Accounting doctrine was built progressively throughout the year, requiring permanent updating of technical knowledge.
Outlook
The year 2021 would bring the gradual normalisation of operational processes, the maturity of tax deferrals, the consolidation of digitalisation accelerated during the pandemic, and preparation for the approaching labour law changes.
Our accounting and business administration team continued to be the trusted operational partner for clients in a year that tested the adaptability of the entire Spanish business fabric.
