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Definitely don't try this...
Simon,
No one, not even an experienced XML developer, should try manually to create a report in iXBRL. Those with accounts in Excel or Word should use one of the products which are gradually becoming available to create iXBRL. You mention a couple in your article, but others have been or will shortly be announced.
I'm the lead author of the XBRL UK taxonomies representing GAAP and IFRS, but I would never contemplate trying to create iXBRL manually. It's a bit like trying to create a Word document by avoiding Microsoft Word and trying to manipulate the underlying code instead. Dealing with the syntax is difficult enough, but there are also technical features like tuples and dimensions to handle. This is all intended to be handled by software - hiding the technicality from users. As you say, the work for the vast majority of companies will be handled by their accounting or tax software packages. Those companies, primarily the large ones, whose processes demand final conversion from Word or Excel versions will find products available. For example, one very large company has been beta-testing a couple of products over the past few months which are not mentioned in your article.
I am not able to list forthcoming products (I'm bound to maintain confidentiality over plans that I've heard from specific companies), but they will be there.
In addition, XBRL UK (with HMRC and Companies House) will be publishing a guide in the next few weeks to help those who face the task of manual tagging using software. Clearly, software companies will also be providing user guides specific to their applications. There will be a lot of help out there.
I think you deserve a medal for your attempts on this ('bravery beyond the call of duty'?) but my response to your question on whether people should attempt the manual creation of iXBRL is "No, don't even try".
Peter Calvert
XBRL and the small accountant
I am wondering how much longer I am going to be able to provide a service to my small clients, people who can barely pay themselves a salary let alone additional accounting fees.
I have always done the accounts of such people. Yes, I charge a fee, they get Rolls Royce treatment for Mini prices. I see it as feeding something back into the community, not exactly charity, but certainly benevolent. I work from home, don't have high overheads and have given these people the benefit of this saving.
But slowly but surely HMRC and their online filing programme is grinding me down. I am computer literate and started filing tax returns online from the word go, using HMRC software. Then a few years ago, they changed their software, the printouts, which had no space for the client to sign, I wouldn't submit to my dog, let alone my clients. I fought tooth and nail at the time, using every resource available (there is a thread on AccountingWeb started by me), but in the end I gave up and purchased a year's right to a commercial package and now just pay the annual subscription as it is harder to go back to HMRC software. It means I earn about £10 or £12 less from each client, but I have been willing to pay the price.
I have only 10 corporate sets of accounts and so use my own bespoke system, which is a mixture of Word and Excel. On November 24th, I tried to file my first set of accounts, computation and corporation tax return using HMRC iXBRL system. It was a nightmare. There was an exchange gain and the system would not accept this figure. I telephoned online help desk thinking it was a software problem. There followed a flurry of email which beggared belief, I was apparently receiving automated responses, the last of which referred me back to the online services help desk. In January I received several patronising telephone calls and eventually in February received a call from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. However the problem is still not solved, there is still no-where to enter an exchange gain.
Yesterday I had a couple of accounts to submit, and so I had another try. After two hours of not really getting very far, I gave up and sent them by post.
As far commercial software, I have investigated this, but so far, for 10 clients, the best offer I have had for accounts production and online filing would cost me £150 per client. If there is something cheaper out there, I would love to hear from you.
Excel Solution
Hi Simon
A great article as usual; you have clearly laid out the problems for an Excel user.
The good news is that there is a solution which allows users to continue with Excel and still meet the iXBRL filing regs without needing to get bogged down in tags, taxonomy or any such thing.
Please see the Press Release here: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/partners/press/taxcalc-partner-arkk-provide-i-xbrl-solution-excel-users
Kind regards
Anne Porter
TaxCalc Brand Director
Re: XBRL and the small accountant
Well, HMRC and Companies House will be providing free software for really simple company accounts. I believe some software suitable for fairly straightforward company accounts will be available for a few hundred pounds per year (total licence, not per client). Clearly, more elaborate packages from software vendors catering for more substantial filing or accounts of more substantial companies will cost more.
One basic fact, however, is that people will need software - and properly developed software - to file. Bespoke, home-made systems based on Excel are very unlikely to work. That may be why your filings so far have failed.
iXBRL accounts and CT software
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/efiling/ctsoft_dev.htm lists the products recognised for HMRC iXBRL accounts filing. Fingers of one hand ? Thumb would probably do the trick.
Don't know where you got the £150 per client from.
Our accounts software is £335, CT with electronic filing £195 - so for accounts and CT just over £530 for unlimited clients. I am sure if you ask nicely we could do a reduced price if you have only 10 clients.
David Forbes
Forbes Computer Systems Ltd
p.s. if you really are stuck on excel, www.datatracks.co.uk are using some post production tagging software we wrote (not our accounts software) for providing an outsourced tagging service.
Hate to say it
...but I think Simon has proved at last what I have said for years: Excel was NEVER designed as an accountant's reporting tool. Trying to shoehorn into something like this is either for the incrediblty brave or the downright stupid. Leave programming to the experts (who hopefully have more comprehensive negligence insurance policies than the average Excel DIYer).
Missing the point?
As a vendor of iXBRL ready accounts production I must applaud this articles intention and conclusions. Excel and Word are not accounts production tools and those who have relied on it are now faced with three choices:
1 Continue to use Word/Excel then pay an outsourcing service to tag the accounts for them.
2 Use the pdf form provided by HMRC
3 Use a professional accounts production tool.
Whisls there are arguments for each of these approaches, as I visit many accountants I am concerned that the full impact of these changes are not being fully understood by many firms. Whichever approach is chosen it is prudent for firms to put in place now, pracitcal measures which may include:
looking at the schedule of jobs around the March/April 11 deadine to see if any larger jobs can be processed prior to the requirement.
Communicating to the customer base that this new requirement means an additional financial cost to THEM!
Discovering how many clients produce their own accounts and asking if they want to continue to do so in the light of this requirement.
I am concerned that many firms have put this on the desk of the Tax partner and not fully appreciated that this is a significant change to operations.
CaseWare is fortunate to have had XBRL capability for many years, and our experience from the US is that in the first year of XBRL adoption many firms chose a "drag and tag" style tool to convert word documents but then chose a professional solution in the second year. It will be interesting to see the experience of the UK.
Lack of info
I'm currently experimenting with a bit of software that came bundled with our reporting database, called DragonTag (drag and tag, geddit?) which would appear to be a US product.
It's not particularly user friendly, and the manual that comes with it is frankly hopeless. However, I have now got a Word template file tagged up with the UK GAAP taxonomy, validated (albeit only by the DragonTag software) and it will be easily replicable across the 15 or so sets of accounts that I will ultimately have to produce.
What I don't have is any way of testing this with HMRC. Additionally, it's still never been made clear what format they want submissions in. DragonTag will produce a .xml output file, which initially I assumed was what HMRC wanted. However, in a presentation the other day, a chap from HMRC commented that they would "still be able to see branding and so on". You certainly don't get that in a .xml file - do they want the tagged .doc Word file? Who knows - I haven't been able to find out, and this particular chap couldn't give a straight answer to the question.
I'm considering looking at Seahorse, but it's no use doing that until I can find an answer to the question of what HMRC want (which I don't think is really covered in this article either!).
I suspect we will end up paying someone to look at my tagged files: KPMG seem to have stolen a march on the subject as far as accountancy firms go.
Finally, I suspect that HMRC will use this year as a live test. In the HMRC presentation, this was hinted at with a comment along the lines of 'as long as people have had a decent go we will probably let it go'. However, from reading around articles on the subject it feels as though there's still a lot of confusion around how exactly this is all going to work.
Re: Lack of info
HMRC want to receive a CT600 form (which is XML) which includes inside it both your Computations and your Accounts. The Comps and Accounts must both be in iXBRL.
iXBRL is a variant of HTML, so the individual documents can be viewed in a browser. For more on iXBRL you might be interested in our series of high-level articles on the CoreFiling blog at http://blogs.corefiling.com.
In answer to your question, Seahorse produces the format mandated for the Comps and Accounts (it uses predictive tagging to convert a Word document into iXBRL). I believe that DragonTag produces conventional XBRL, which will not be accepted by HMRC. However, I recommend that you check with
the vendor.
Re: Lack of Info
Firstly, 'turnercrw', congratulations on getting the tagging done with Dragon Tag. That shows you the main process involved in manual tagging - I'm also sure that software will improve dramatically in user friendliness over the coming months. You may want to try different software packages to assess their ease of use.
The format that is required for filing in XBRL in the UK is Inline XBRL or iXBRL, as Simon's original article mentions. This is basically HMTL with XBRL tags buried in it. A human can read the HTML in the ordinary way (without seeing the tags unless he/she wants to) and a computer reads the tags.
The use of iXBRL is being emphasised in HMRC and other publications, so if this message was not clear in the event you attended, then it soon will be through other routes.
Dragon Tag, produced by Rivet Software, is a US product and XBRL filing in the US is not in Inline XBRL (yet). I am thus not sure if Dragon Tag properly produces Inline XBRL at this stage. Rivet said last year that they were going to include this in their output, and I thought they had done so, at least in prototype for Excel. However, I am not certain of this and you may need to contact Rivet if you plan to continue to use their product (using the tagging work you have already done). Products marketed here will definitely support Inline XBRL. I also expect they will have features to make the filing process smooth and easy. Olive Browne has mentioned Seahorse; this e-mail thread also mentions Caseware and Forbes and there will be others.
In fact, in tagging with Dragon Tag, you have already done the difficult bit if you are using a manual process, which is the tagging.
Peter Calvert
Re: Lack of info
Thank you for the replies. Dragon Tag doesn't sound promising if it's not going to be in the right format! Looking at the xml output it produces I see things like:
<uk-gaap-pt:TurnoverGrossOperatingRevenue contextRef="June20092" unitRef="GBP" decimals="-3">56127</uk-gaap-pt:TurnoverGrossOperatingRevenue>
<uk-gaap-pt:TurnoverGrossOperatingRevenue contextRef="June20102" unitRef="GBP" decimals="-3">28638</uk-gaap-pt:TurnoverGrossOperatingRevenue>
which looks similar to the examples in the original article, but doesn't appear to have these 'inline' tags. In this case we have a comparative for turnover of £56,127,000 for a June 2009 year end, with £28,638,000 for the June 2010 year end (a dummy figure).
I suppose the missing link for me is not being clear over what happens between tagging a document, and the submissions to HMRC. For example, if I tag a Word document with Dragon Tag, I don't end up with a new format - it's still a Word document, with the tags embedded. I had been assmuming, given the information that I had seen, that we would squirt the Word document off to HMRC, and they would be able to read the tags that it contained.
It sounds as though that might not be the case; but I don't then see how manually tagging a Word document would be compliant with the requirement to submit an xml CT600 form containing the accounts, despite having been told more than once that manual tagging is a possible solution.
I'll look into the tagging products that are mentioned here, but more than anything I'm keen to understand how these products produce the output that is required by HMRC, and what that is.
Use Open Office instead?
The UK Government can not endorse any proprietary product like Excel so they have to go for Open Office.
Having said that the XSD schema that they provide for iXBRL does not load into Excel 2007 anyway it has an error message!
Argh cost!
Hmm, to follow up from earlier, I've had a brief discussion with one company, whose software is going to cost 12 grand. 12 grand! I was thinking along the lines of 500 quid. I'm starting to weigh up the relative costs of compliance vs the costs of penalties for non-compliance. At the very least this puts me off doing online returns until 2011 year end (ie get paper returns in before 31 March 2011 for the 2010 year end).
To All Those Without Accounts Production Software
1. You need to know how much to either have the use of post production software, or outsource the tagging (has a temporary solution til I make my mind up feel about it).
2. For those considering post production software (you can't tag any other way), there is PLENTY of detail on what HMRC want, and it is freely available from them, albeit, it is aimed at software developers, but I understand they are going to issue something for the layman soon. You will discover what the minimum tags are and what the rules are, and yes, there are rules!!!!!
3. Minimum tagging - sorry to be bring bad news, but this is only a temporary situation - full tagging is mandatory from 2013.
4. IFRS for SME's - start all over again.
5. Post production software 'remembers' your previous tags, hmmm, probably spend longer checking to see if it got them right.
6. HMRC aren't in the business of providing free software for professionals - any hope you had that they might improve their offering I would forget.
7. ALL software vendors, unless they are planning to close their business, WILL be ready in PLENTY of time for the deadline. For those with only a few clients with a need for iXBRL worried about cost NEGOTIATE with them, they won't want to turn you away.
ixbrl
Like a lot of AP software houses we (Eureka software) have been looking at this for a while. I too a while back out of curiosity looked at the drag and tag packages out there but didnt spend a lot of time as it looked pretty painful and to me, looked like something accountants would not want to have to go into. I am not sure there are easy fixes either (just yet) to convert from word to excel.
We have spent some time on the Companies House link and have been succesful, however of course the accounts are abbreviated or dormant. Even on those formats there seem to be formatting issues with the accounts, it will be interesting to see how HMRC are going to get on with full accounts.
Neil Douglas ACMA MAAT
Eureka Software
02476 351414
Deadline
"7. ALL software vendors, unless they are planning to close their business, WILL be ready in PLENTY of time for the deadline. For those with only a few clients with a need for iXBRL worried about cost NEGOTIATE with them, they won't want to turn you away."
I'm sure they will; but those who are ready now are stealing a march. I'm working to a June year end with a UK group of about 15 companies that I will be filing for. My plan is to tag 3 templates (1 CA06, 1 IPS, and 1 group). The accounts will be prepared in late July / early August and signed off in September. Any providers who aren't ready by June can forget it, because after that I'll have to tag already prepared accounts individually, rather than 3 templates - not something I've got the appetite to do. The Corefiling product is supposed to be ready in October, and because of the possibility of automatic tagging by that product I might consider it, but it's more likely I'll go with something that I can see working before then.
My personal view is that financial statements preparers need to be able to have confidence in their chosen solution by the time of their year end, and not be waiting for software houses who haven't got their act together in time - audit timetables are a lot different to tax filing timetables.
Is there a different approach?
I agree with the other contributors that this is a great, thought provoking article, thank you Simon.
Going back a bit to the very early days of accounts production software - ah! Finax, where are you now? I heard tell of one of the few firms who made it work profitably by being ruthless with their clients' accounts and fitting them into a very limited number of predetermined templates.
Looking at my own company's unaudited abbreviated accounts submitted to Companies House there are fewer than 30 distinct figures, including comparatives, which need to be input - there are then various calculated subtotals, totals etc. The narrative and headings will presumably be standard and not need entering.
Presumably, therefore, if I can identify the relevant 30 tags, a DIY approach would not be out of the question for unaudited abbreviated accounts. If I can produce a webpage, why can't I do this? Although, it's probably going to be more practical to use the Companies House template
If I can do it for my company, why can't an accountant identify say the 100 tags relevant to the majority of his or her clients?
Accounts for the taxman, will clearly require understanding more tags, because the volume of information is greater, but I suspect that the vast majority of small businesses could home in on a greatly reduced version of the taxonomy.
If we think about how accounts production software has evolved from those early inflexible days, it seems to be highly likely that iXBRL2 and subsequent versions may become rather smarter in use.
The French with their Plan Comptable have been using predetermined accounts headings for a very long time, but it is taking the introduction of iXRL for the UK to follow suit.
As I have said on another thread, the implications for practitioners may be very far reaching, if the client is simply squirting the figures direct from their Sage or Quickbooks accounts software to Companies House and HMRC. Disclosure requirements will become pretty irrelevant and checking that the right amount of tax has been charged may become quite difficult. Maybe fluency with the taxonomy of iXBRL will become a core skill for the accountant of the future.
XBRL = 2,000 page tax return
First of all I should state that I have a vested interest. VT Software’s work on iXBRL is well advanced and iXBRL will force more people to buy accounts production software! I should also say that Peter Calvert of XBRL UK and all the relevant staff at HMRC have all been extremely helpful when I have needed assistance.
To get back to the point, the experts are saying that it is impossible to hand craft iXBRL. You need to buy software or outsource the task (to someone who has the software). In this I can only agree. That is because iXBRL is extremely technically complex.
The i bit in iXBRL is very clever and invented only recently. Hide some extra tags in a web page and it becomes both machine and human readable. It could be applied to lots of things, not just XBRL. However, one cannot help but think that the XBRL bit is unnecessarily complex and cumbersome. It dates back to pre-iXBRL days when it had to cover every conceivable eventuality in a set of accounts. The taxonomies also date back to pre-iXBRL days. They are also designed to take into account every conceivable piece of data. When you take into account the dimensions that can be applied to items in the UK GAAP taxonomy, there must be some 100,000 combinations. That is the equivalent of filling in a 2,000 page tax return, albeit electronically and with the vast majority of the boxes blank. It is hard to imagine that HMRC are actually interested in more that a few hundred items. It is not too late; HMRC could issue a much reduced taxonomy with a few hundred items in it using a sub-set of XBRL features. That would make life much simpler for those who want to use software to tag up bespoke accounts prepared in Word or Excel. Philip HodgsonVT Software
No need to do anything with the iXBRL or MHTML, as its already done, your just changing the figures.
First you need to prepare the template.
1. Download any set of accounts that is already in the iXBRL format.
2. Parse the file to get the figures that need to be changed, and replace them with Tags of your own.
Then this template can be used over and over again, just by parsing the file and replacing your tags with the figures from the bs and p&l.
Its a couple of hours to prepare the template.