The Risk Assessment Working Group was set up in 1987 in order to draw up the so called White Paper on corporate analysis in Europe and to draft reports on the analysis of stocks and flows conducted in the various central balance-sheet data offices. The group then expanded its project and, since 1999, its members have been working in cooperation with the related divisions of the European Central Bank, homogenising the  risk analysis carried out by Central Banks.

The scope of the Financial Statement Analysis Working Group is common microeconomic research on specific topics of the economic and financial situation of non-financial entities in an international setting. Such research can include any field of financial statement analysis like profitability, equity endowment, liability structure or asset composition. Structural, cross-sectional and time-series analyses are mainly applied. When producing cross-country figures, the working group also investigates whether accounting or institutional characteristics can explain differences in the results.

The Working Group primarily focuses on the impact of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the IASB, on the accountancy of non financial corporations and their effects on the European central balance sheet data offices´ databases and questionnaires, trying to assess both potential opportunities and risks. To that end, the group has developed IFRS-compliant standard formats (using for that purpose the IFRS Taxonomy defined by the  IASB-XBRL Team) and created the ERICA (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts) database.

BACH WG is responsible for the management of the BACH database, which contains aggregated and relatively harmonized accounting related data of non-financial incorporated enterprises for European countries. In particular, the WG is devoted to the maintenance, update and promotion of BACH, as well as to the development of related products. The WG must actively participate in the discussion about the importance and the economic and financial situation of European companies.