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Companies House gears up for online accounts filing

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3rd Aug 2005
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Companies House is working on plans to launch online filing services for unaudited company accounts within a month or two - once a data exchange taxonomy has been agreed.

A spokeswoman for Company House told AccountingWEB that work was nearing completion at the agency on draft a taxonomy based around the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

XBRL is an international standard supported by the likes of Microsoft, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Based around XML data tags, XBRL holds the promise of allowing seamless transfer of data between software applications and web services - if all the parties involved can agree on the data definitions (commonly referred to as schemas or taxonomies).

When the final Companies House XBRL taxonomy is agreed, the agency will inform accounts production software developers and provide them with a set of data validators to test their systems.

"That will be the first testing stage before we contemplate online filing," the spokeswoman said.

Until now, Companies House has used its own tag-based specification for electronic data filing, or accepted PDF documents. While PDF is popular with users, the image file received means that Companies House staff have to manually rekey the information into their validation systems.

"There is no date set for the launch, and we don't want a big bang," said the Companies House executive. " We want to be able to iron out any kinks that crop up. It will be a gradual thing and we're not expecting everybody to be ready on day one."

However the organisation has been receiving queries from small companies and will encourage them to try out the online filing facilities when they become available. If they do not have access to XBRL-compatible software, they will be able to enter their figures manually into intelligent templates on the Companies House website.

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By carnmores
07th Aug 2005 18:24

Critical issue
we have had 2 sides of the coin, but if BASDA is unhappy then there must be serious cause for concern.

the hubris of government thinking is apparent from Pauls comments, we have talked to this government agency and that government agency, that is precisely the problem

nemesis will no doubt follow.

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By carnmores
15th Aug 2005 17:44

AND ANOTHER POINT
why does it take a week for the documenst to be examined, if our software can use the public record checker why cant CH use it without being totally silly about some entries; that way we could get a response in 2 days max and not the week approx it takes at present.

doubtless with acs CH will have to reexamine their whole document examination strategy, that should be fun!

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By AnonymousUser
03rd Aug 2005 15:35

Another Government IT Fiasco
Yet another example of the Government's idea of 'consultation' with the software industry - tell us that they are going to talk to us and then tell us that they have talked to us - this is what we decided.

Unfortunately, we have no opportunity to decide anything as we have had no contact with Companies House since last November when we told them that mapping XBRL to their taxonomy was not feasible in its present form. At the time, we offered to work with them to create a practical working system which would be simple to operate and encourage take-up by businesses.

You will note that they have now announced that when they, who know nothing about developing software, have finished their draft a taxonomy, they plan to 'inform accounts production software developers and provide them with a set of data validators to test their systems.' I think this is called mushroom management.

As usual, they have not listened and they are setting up yet another eGovernment initiative to fail.

Dennis Keeling
Chief Executive
BASDA - Business Application Software Developers' Association

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