XBRL in the UK

Peter Calvert

XBRL European Technical Meeting

5 October 2006

Overview

Projects in the UK – Companies House - regulator which receives

company accounts – Tax authority - HMRC

XBRL to be mandatory in UK for all company account and tax reporting after March 2010

Types of UK Reporting

UK GAAP– Some 2.3 million unlisted companies

IFRS– about 2,500 listed companies

HMRC Tax Computations

Other additional reporting -e.g. FSA

Nature of UK reporting

No fixed format or content

Accounts of most companies vary considerably in content and layout

Only some of the smallest companies follow a fairly predictable format – However, this is still a large number of

companies

Consequences

Large and complex GAAP taxonomy

Need to support company extensions

Need to support varying formats => requirements for rendering

Various issues arise with calculations, handling of text etc.

Plans in the UK

Start with small companies, then move to more complex cases.

Companies House project for XBRL filing by audit exempt companies

HMRC tax computations and accounts for audit exempt companies

Expand to larger companies

Taxonomy development

Full UK GAAP taxonomy

Extend for small companies

HMRC tax computations taxonomy

(Use stylesheets for rendering)

Revise full UK GAAP taxonomy– Issue to software vendors for feedback and

implementation

Companies House small company project

Went live in December 2005

Filing by accounting software packages and by web interface

About 40,000 accounts filed so far

Significant increase in quality and saving of resources

Companies House implementation

Companies HouseTaxonomy Schema Document (approx. 60 elements)

uk-gaap-ae

Linkbases

uk-gaap-pt

Taxonomy Schema Document(over 3,000 elements)

Label Linkbase

ReferenceLinkbase

Taxonomy Schema Document

uk-gcd

Label Linkbase

XBRLInstance Document

HMRC, Next Steps and UK GAAP

HMRC filing of tax computations just gone live

Revision of small companies extension => broader range of smaller company filing in early 2007

Revision of UK GAAP taxonomy now in final stages

Revision of UK GAAP taxonomy and expansion of XBRL filing

Revised version incorporates dimensions (and new GCD)

Now under internal review

Release to accounting software companies in November

Important implementation stage: challenge for companies and XBRL

Issues - Dimensions

Important addition - much more effective representation of data

Reduction in number of elements

BUT complex to implement– Statistics: 34 dimensions, 22 hypercubes– Use of inheritance to simplify extension– Feedback from review and early

implementation

Issues - Rendering

Standard mechanism to make instances readable by humans

Required by data providers for efficient instance creation and assurance

Needed by regulators for efficient consumption and publication of data

Other Issues (1)

Text: what text to represent and at what level of granularity

Versioning: – Phased approach– Standard way of documenting typical changes– Human commentary– We should limit initial expectations

Other Issues (2)

Formulae– Not a high priority for the UK– Accept limitations of calculations– Practical application and extensibility

GCD– Use and reaction so far– Duplicate activity and loss of interoperability– Effort required - put on agenda for future

consideration

SUMMARY OF XBRL IN THE UK

Successful implementation for fixed format and simple accounts

Now face challenge of implementing for large, variable format accounts with company extensions

Deadlines; requirements for international deliverables