More often than not, business owners want to become BEE compliant but don't know how or can’t afford to lose valuable time on frustrating administrative tasks.

The purpose of the Broad Based BEE scorecard is to encourage businesses to promote economic growth amongst the black population of South Africa.

To become BEE compliant, this article looks at some steps to assist you in developing an internal scorecard. A cost effective BEE services provider can assist you to ensure your calculations are correct and documentation in place for a conflict free BEE Audit.

There are various different documents that are involved in the process and it is often an easier and more cost effective route to get a professional to support this part of the process. Such documentation includes ownership and shareholding, director and employee lists to verify management and employment equity status, skills development, preferential procurement policies; social-economic development plans and more.

For you to develop an internal scorecard, the following steps and tips should prove useful:

You do not have to be a BEE expert, but it is important to understand the scorecard because you need to know what has to be done within your business to earn points and what you can do in the future to earn additional points to improve your overall score.

There is ample information on the scorecard and numerous free courses presented on the topic.

You should also identify where you will be affected because each element on the BEE scorecard affects different businesses in different ways. Compare yourself to competitors and determine what your customers require. Ownership for example is not applicable to all businesses and the overall scorecard is based on 7 pillars of which Qualifying Small Enterprises only have to work on 4 of those pillars and ownership is not a requirement.

Once you know the impact of each aspect on your business it is now time to start earning points.

· You can earn Ownership points by selling shares to black partners

· Management points can be earned by appointing black directors and managers

· Employment Equity Points are earned by employing junior/middle/senior managers and for smaller businesses black employees

· Skills Development points can be earned by training employees; which could be done through formal out-sourced training or in-house training

· Preferential Procurement points can be earned by purchasing goods and services from other businesses with a good BEE Scorecards

· Enterprise Development points are earned by assisting smaller black owned businesses to grow; you can do this by offering free training or gifting your old technical equipment or computers

· Socio-economic Development points are earned by supporting black social causes

Spend additional time to gather evidence to substantiate your BEE status and if need be; use an independent verification process to ensure your final audit is successful. You should use a good BEE Scorecard calculator and in this regard an external verification process can also prove valuable.

Once you know how many points you have earned, you now need to find a way to earn the remaining points. Therefore you need to create a strategy report. Consider the availability of the points and the cost of each point before embarking on a "points scavenger hunt". This strategy should include your year-end points as well as your future scorecard points.

Earn points based on your strategy and implement the items you diligently strategized. During the implementation phase ensure that all of the final decisions make business sense and BEE sense. Remember to update your scorecard calculation with all of the newly implemented transactions.

The Scorecard Audit whereby BEE Verification is done can be extremely stressful. If you have prepared well then you will have less difficulties.