iXBRL accounts production choices for corporates

iXBRL accounts production choices for corporates

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As a multi national corporate the decision has been taken to replace Word with an Accounts Production package for IXBRL submission purposes. The question is which package, therefore if there are any large corporates who have already chosen a package it would be interesting to know which one or at least know what is currently on the shortlist.

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By g.michalis
02nd Nov 2010 10:29

Accounts production software

 Andrew

I am a member of the XBRL assurance services team at PwC and specialise in advising clients on software selection and implementation. I have good knowledge of accounts production packages and my team and me have good relationships with the main software vendors. I would be happy to discuss this with you if you wish.

My email address is [email protected]

Kind regards

Michalis

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Nichola Ross Martin
By Nichola Ross Martin
03rd Nov 2010 10:25

Most will be XRBL compliant

Most accounting packages are already XRBL compliant, so whilst that is the primary consideration your second is really how much you want it to do for you and whether you want it to integrate into anything else.

If you have been producing accounts in Word then in theory you can just buy some software to tag it. In my humble opinion manual tagging is a waste of anyone's time; you are much better off buying software to do it for you.

I would suggest that an easier solution is to buy an accounts production package where you sweep your TB into the new software, and then after making the necessary discloure tweeks you press a button and hey-ho, you can create a tagged version too.

I have been testing out VT accounts for clients with a group of companies who normally prep accounts on Excel and Word. It is the simpler end of the market, ideal if you have internal accounting set up and do not want to learn new software. It does the trick and seems to have a fairly solid template that is not difficult to change if you like Excel, the thing with VT is that it allows you to post journals and so once set up you are there.

So it depends on you and your budget. If you are a qualified accountant you may have started in practice and will be familiar with the typical accounts production package and so prefer something more sophisticated than a tagging tool. Be prepared to learn how to operate new software.

The bigger players are CCH, Iris, Sage and Thompson Reuters.   Alphatax is popular too this is launching an AP product.

Just finally, what is really worrying us is that clients will create their accounts - with tags they will pass them to us to prepare the tax comps and then for whatever reason we will be unable to submit them. I think with that in mind your best bet is to work on this with your tax advisers unless you are submitting your own tax comps.

Virtual tax support for accountants, visit:www.rossmartin.co.uk

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