XBRL in the UK Peter Calvert

1
XBRL in the UKPeter Calvert

• XBRL European Technical Meeting
• 5 October 2006

2
Overview

• Projects in the UK
• Companies House - regulator which receives
  company accounts
• Tax authority - HMRC
• XBRL to be mandatory in UK for all company
  account and tax reporting after March 2010

3
Types of UK Reporting

• UK GAAP
• Some 2.3 million unlisted companies
• IFRS
• about 2,500 listed companies
• HMRC Tax Computations
• Other additional reporting -e.g. FSA

4
Nature of UK reporting

• No fixed format or content
• Accounts of most companies vary considerably in
  content and layout
• Only some of the smallest companies follow a
  fairly predictable format
• However, this is still a large number of companies

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
Consequences

• Large and complex GAAP taxonomy
• Need to support company extensions
• Need to support varying formats gt requirements
  for rendering
• Various issues arise with calculations, handling
  of text etc.

9
Plans in the UK

• Start with small companies, then move to more
  complex cases.
• Companies House project for XBRL filing by audit
  exempt companies
• HMRC tax computations and accounts for audit
  exempt companies
• Expand to larger companies

10
Taxonomy development

• Full UK GAAP taxonomy
• Extend for small companies
• HMRC tax computations taxonomy
• (Use stylesheets for rendering)
• Revise full UK GAAP taxonomy
• Issue to software vendors for feedback and
  implementation

11
Companies House small company project

• Went live in December 2005
• Filing by accounting software packages and by web
  interface
• About 40,000 accounts filed so far
• Significant increase in quality and saving of
  resources

12
Companies House implementation
13
HMRC, Next Steps and UK GAAP

• HMRC filing of tax computations just gone live
• Revision of small companies extension gt broader
  range of smaller company filing in early 2007
• Revision of UK GAAP taxonomy now in final stages

14
Revision of UK GAAP taxonomy and expansion of
XBRL filing

• Revised version incorporates dimensions (and new
  GCD)
• Now under internal review
• Release to accounting software companies in
  November
• Important implementation stage challenge for
  companies and XBRL

15
Issues - Dimensions

• Important addition - much more effective
  representation of data
• Reduction in number of elements
• BUT complex to implement
• Statistics 34 dimensions, 22 hypercubes
• Use of inheritance to simplify extension
• Feedback from review and early implementation

16
Issues - Rendering

• Standard mechanism to make instances readable by
  humans
• Required by data providers for efficient instance
  creation and assurance
• Needed by regulators for efficient consumption
  and publication of data

17
Other Issues (1)

• Text what text to represent and at what level
  of granularity
• Versioning
• Phased approach
• Standard way of documenting typical changes
• Human commentary
• We should limit initial expectations

18
Other Issues (2)

• Formulae
• Not a high priority for the UK
• Accept limitations of calculations
• Practical application and extensibility
• GCD
• Use and reaction so far
• Duplicate activity and loss of interoperability
• Effort required - put on agenda for future
  consideration

19
SUMMARY OF XBRL IN THE UK

• Successful implementation for fixed format and
  simple accounts
• Now face challenge of implementing for large,
  variable format accounts with company extensions
• Deadlines requirements for international
  deliverables