Automating the Financial Reporting Process
Digital Financial Reporting is moving to a new phase of development. The move towards standardisation using Inline XBRL (HTML with XBRL tags) and its benefits were reviewed in a recent article. In Europe, ESEF regulation and the proposed EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) reporting framework mean that some 50,000 of the largest European companies will be using the iXBRL format for their reporting.
Like companies reporting to the US SEC, UK Companies House, Irish Tax Office and many others, these companies are evolving their internal and external reporting processes as part of the move to iXBRL.
The initial phase saw software suppliers and companies primarily focussed on how to tag and validate their report. XBRL tools were simply bolted on to existing financial and disclosure management software to provide the required format.
The previous article discussed the many limitations with tagging PDF-files or the ‘document-first’ approach. The article went on to explain the new ‘digital-first’ approach emerging using HTML-based content management systems, which solves these limitations and offers many process advantages. One of the biggest benefits of digital formats for companies is the automation of the reporting process, including the XBRL tagging.
This paper explores new ways of working, new software tools, and using new formats for integrating numerous systems in the reporting chain.
The rest of this article can be read on Medium for free – here