The more information you acquire about B-BBEE and the benefits of being able to display your status, the more empowered you will be to make B-BBEE make business sense for your company!
Let’s address some of the basic and more frequently asked questions:
Benefits of being verified?
A B-BBEE certificate is a recognizable and verifiable overview of the human components of your enterprise. It demonstrates your alignment with South Africa’s overall economic objectives. It can improve goodwill and public relations with your brand, thereby increasing your social capital. This enhances your competitiveness to secure both private and public sector contracts. A B-BBEE certificate can only be obtained through a SANAS accredited B-BBEE rating verification agency.
I am a black-owner business, why do I need to be rated?
A SANAS accredited B-BBEE Certificate provides accurate, verifiable and recognisable proof that your business is fully black-owned and is actively transforming the economy through its empowerment efforts.
Fantastic opportunities exist for those organisations that support transformation. A B-BEE certificate demonstrates that your business is carrying out other initiatives that have a direct result not only on your own enterprise, but other enterprises within the South African business sector as a whole, :
- Having women of colour across your management structure
- Training programmes to develop the skills of your staff;
- Supply chain practices that support black-owned, small to medium enterprise; and
- Socially Developmental Initiatives which display social awareness and efforts to promote inclusive growth.
Have you come across a company making use of misleadings brand names to secure business in the marketplace? This practice is one of the reasons that all companies should verify their black ownership through a B-BBEE certificate. This ensures that companies are not exercising Fronting practices (a criminal offence according to the B-BBEE Act) and that initiatives promoting economic inclusivity are above board.
Do Exempted Micro-Enterprises need to be rated?
Most Exempted Micro Enterprises (EME) receive an automatic B-BBEE level without the need for a verification agency by using the DTI’s EME affidavit. The B-BBEE Status received is linked to the level of black ownership in the enterprise and the applicable sector code. The exception to the automatically awarded statuses are EMEs operating within the following sectors:
Transport (Road Freight, Maritime, Logistics, F&C etc.)
Construction EMEs in the above two business sectors are required to undergo a verification with a SANAS accredit rating agency and their status to be verified by such agency.
An EME may improve its B-BBEE Status through a SANAS verification in terms of the relevant QSE Scorecard to prove their higher compliance. In this case, the company will then receive a B-BBEE Certificate to use instead.
What does it cost to get rated?
Our experience has shown that high costs of rating procedures make it harder for customers to maintain their compliance status. We, therefore, use our pricing to empower you by ensuring that you receive high value and high-quality services, no matter your turnover.
Our verification quotation is based on the following variables:
- Company turnover
- Staff Count
- Number of business locations
- Sector code scorecard to be used in the verification
- Complexity of Ownership Structure (i.e. multi-tier, ESOP, BSOS and third party shareholding)
Please use our Quotation Calculator in order to get a rough estimate of the costs involved.
How long does the verification process take?
We complete 95% of our verifications within 4 weeks – depending on the completeness of the verification file submitted. We also offer urgent verifications, completed in just 1-2 weeks, for enterprises whose certificates are near expiry or where an urgent tender is due
How often does my business need to be rated?
The B-BBEE certificate is valid for one year only and is therefore due for renewal on a yearly basis.
Here’s how we can help you
Vision Verification is prepared to help you take the next step towards economic empowerment with B-BBEE verification. We can assist with;
- Verify the status of your enterprise
- The legal framework of economic empowerment, including the B-BBEE codes of good practice
- The scorecards that are relevant to your sector
- Preparing your portfolio of evidence
- Introducing transformation and change management
- B-BBEE Training
- Consolidated B-BBEE certificates
- B-BBEE advisory services