iXBRL Updates from CIPC – July 2019
Published - 2 August, 2019
Last year the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission (CIPC) mandated Inline XBRL (iXBRL) reporting for all entities required to submit Annual Financial Statements (AFS’s), with the aim of improving regulatory efficiency and effectiveness and building up a bank of data to undertake in-depth analysis of trends.
Stage two of the project will involve updating the CIPC taxonomy, currently based on the IFRS 2016 taxonomy, to include the 2017, 2018 and 2019 updates. The CIPC is also focusing on improving data quality, quantity, availability and standardisation – in line with global trends and the aims of overseas jurisdictions leading the introduction of iXBRL such as ESMA and the SEC.
So far implementation has been a success, with significant gains including faster turnaround in the investigation of cases, and the ability to immediately detect noncompliance upon filing. This has freed up staff time to focus on substantive analysis of financial information.
Going forward, the CIPC have also noted that the filing community can expect a heightened focus on enforcement, and appropriate sanctions for those entities found not to have complied with the requirement to submit annual financial statements in iXBRL.
The CIPC at an iXBRL Software Service Provider (SSP) Strategic Session held on July 24th discussed various issues.
These included:
- Typical iXBRL filing issues regarding the substance of AFS issues
Substance of AFS Issues
- Information reflected on iXBRL not the same as information on pdf AFS
- Date of audit sign off discrepancies. Auditors opinion dated wrong year
- Approval of AFS not within 6 months
- Social and ethics committee report is not disclosed
- Insertion of the wrong directors report
- Name of reporting entity non-compliant on face of AFS and the statements themselves
- Comparative information non-disclosure
- Solvency and liquidity test not performed
- Totals not adding up on Statement of Financial Position
- Tagged information that is not related to the Company, No Auditor report, Tagged information Junk e.g. Name of auditor some auditor, Address incorrect
- Independent Reviewers report not attached
- No Auditors report
- Note 19 referred to in notes but no content in the notes
- #$ software issues
- #139 software issues
- #160 software issues
- Strategic outlook of iXBRL implementation
- SSPs and other strategic partners to assist in improving the quality of submitted AFSs
- Striking a balance between the introduction of more mandatory tags and maintaining data quality is key to the successful implementation of iXBRL within the South Africa context as the technology has to be assimilated and accepted by the community
- Current scenario is that some SSPs only focus on successful iXBRL AFS submissions based on minimum tagging requirements which is separate from the submission of fully compliant AFS.
- SSPs can play a greater role in ensuring that compliant AFSs are submitted as opposed to merely meeting minimum tagging requirements
- CIPC intends to establish a Data Quality Committee, to improve on certain aspects
- Data Completeness and Comprehensiveness - understanding the complete set of requirements that constitute a comprehensive set of data to determine whether or not the requirements are being fulfilled.
- Data Timeliness and Relevance - there must be a valid reason to collect the data to justify the effort required, which also means it has to be collected at the right moment in time.
- Data Legitimacy and Validity - requirements governing data set the boundaries of this characteristic.
- Data Accuracy and Precision - refers to the exactness of the data in that it cannot have any erroneous elements and must convey the correct message without being misleading. Accuracy and precision have a component that relates to its intended use.
- Data Reliability and Consistency - values residing in a different source or part of the AFS cannot contain contradictory information.
- Consolidation of error messages produced by validation engine and e-services portal – more meaningful error messages to be provided
- Pilot Testing Portal available 2/9/2019
2019 Taxonomy Updates are very light. Below is an outline of the project milestones:
The Commissioner has approved that the current base Taxonomy of 2016 will be allowed to run concurrently with the updated Taxonomy of 1 October 2019 until 1 October 2021 to cater for all instances where the customers who could not file during the first-year cycle are able to file as they will have had their financial audited with the 2016 IFRS Framework.
- Current 2016 Taxonomy can still be used until 1 October 2021
- Annual certification will be required for SSP’s in future and SSP identification via a specific tag in the new taxonomy will also be required. This is in line with improving quality of data submitted.
Further to this information, XBRL South Africa, an affiliate of XBRL International will be hosting the XBRL Conference on 14 August 2019, which will bring together local and international speakers to share with delegates valuable insights on international case studies, unpacking the successes as well as challenges and provide valuable advice on how to over come the challenges.
