CaseWare XBRL and accounts production

From the 1st April 2011 HMRC are requiring all limited company accounts to be filed, along with the accompanying tax submissions, as tagged XBRL documents.

What is XBRL?

XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is a means of identifying financial data held in documents, in a way that makes it possible to automatically extract and analyse that information.

It does this by means of tags applied to the financial elements, using a standard naming convention (Taxonomy). It therefore also means that financial data from various documents can be compared using these common tags.

Date and text elements can also be tagged, extracted and compared in the same way.

How will this affect me?

It means that whatever accounts production tool you use will need to be either XBRL compliant, like CaseWare, or be able to accept XBRL tags using some form of 'Drag & tag' application.

Will PDF files be acceptable? They are electronic documents....

PDF files are indeed electronic, but because they do not hold XBRL tags they will not be accepted by HMRC as a valid means of submission. You will have to find an alternative piece of software.

Why are HMRC doing this?

XBRL allows organisations such as HMRC to automatically extract, analyse and manipulate data automatically, removing a huge amount of manual work.

Won't this project get delayed?

There is absolutely no indication that this project will be delayed, and CaseWare is investing heavily in development to ensure that our users meet the deadline in good time.

I use Word & Excel to produce accounts. What are my options?

Spreadsheet and word processed documents have a number of weaknesses as accounts production tools, and the arrival of XBRL has caused many organisations to review their entire accounts production process.

'Drag and tag' tools will allow you to produce XBRL tagged documents, but do not solve any of the other control, speed, and review problems that Word and Excel present you with. Maybe it's time you had a good look at CaseWare?

As an accountant in practice what should I be doing?

You should now be looking at your limited company client portfolio, and ask your current accounts production software suppliers what their plans are for XBRL. Also:

• How many of my clients still prepare accounts in Word or Excel, and what provision are they making for tagging these documents?
• Have I seen the XBRL functionality working in my current accounts production software?
• Will there be pressure on me to file some client accounts early?

As an accountant in commerce what should I be doing?

You should now be looking at your current accounts production process, and seeing this change as an opportunity to improve all aspects of the financial reporting cycle.

• Have I considered changing from my Word and Excel model?
• Have I asked my auditor what they use, or what they recommend?
• What parts of the process could we improve with automation?

What should I do next?

To find out more about the XBRL project why not sign up for one of our two XBRL seminars, in Manchester and London?

• See CaseWare and iXBRL in action
• Hear from HMRC first hand about their project and plans
• Hear from Companies House about how they see the technology revolutionise the way they gather data.

To see more information about the seminar and to register, please see our events page.

To download this full white paper, please click here.