The Implementation of XBRL - how does it affect you?
Come 1st November 2007, a company is required to file its financial statements in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The XBRL format is an online standard that uses the XML-based framework to present financial statements, so that financial information can be retrieved from online records of individual companies.
About XBRL
XBRL is a freely licensed standard. It is developed by a global consortium called XBRL.org, which comprises approximately 450 leading companies, associations, and agencies involved in providing or using business information. With XBRL, it hopes to provide greater access to corporate financial data, facilitating ‘one-stop’ filing and strengthening regulatory vigilance.
Current users of this include the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the UK Inland Revenue Authority, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Shenzhen and South Korea, the UK Companies House and the Swedish Companies Registration Office
About ACRA
With the implementation of XBRL, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) hopes to achieve the following:
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Providing greater access to corporate financial data
End-users of financial information can request for specific items in financial statements across a wide spectrum of companies, e.g. companies in similar industries for analysis or ‘benchmarking’ purposes. Such information may not be easily available currently for financial statements which are filed in Portable Document Format (PDF) or hardcopies. There is also less effort to be expended in the collating and manual re-keying of data. The potential users to benefit from XBRL include shareholders, investors, members of the public, banks and institutional lenders, stock brokers, credit bureaus, companies themselves, etc; -
Facilitating ‘one-stop’ filing
With statements prepared in one standard format, in the long run, it would be possible for a one-stop filing agency to be established where companies need only file one set of financial statements with that agency (eg. ACRA), to fulfill their statutory financial reporting obligations. The same set of financial statements filed can be transferred to other regulatory agencies with similar filing requirements, e.g. IRAS; -
Strengthening regulatory vigilance
With less effort expended in sieving through various report, collating and manual re-keying of data, regulators can devote more time to analyse data and performing their regulatory vigilance functions. Experiences in other countries show that XBRL has been instrumental in improving the regulator’s surveillance and vigilance functions and ACRA is likewise, also tapping on XBRL to improve efficiencies and the effectiveness of its surveillance and vigilance functions
About using XBRL
FS Manager is a free online tool provided by ACRA as part of BizFile to help companies prepare and manage financial statements in XBRL format. Using FS Manager, company filers or relevant users (e.g. preparers of financial statements) can submit companies’ financials via completing a series of web-based forms.
FS Manager has been linked to BizFile to enable preparers to commence using the tool to prepare the financial statements for purposes of the AGM.
2 important points for preparers to note:
- The company is filing its Annual Returns in XBRL format on or after 1 November 2007 AND
- The company is filing its Annual Returns on or after 30 April 2007.
About Training
ACRA is working together with several training partners in providing a comprehensive training on XBRL. One partner that will be providing this course is The DP Bureau Pte Ltd.
More information can be accessed at their website:
http://www.dpbureau.com.sg/XBRLWeb.html, alternatively you can give DP Bureau a call at Tel: 6829 9800