What is XBRL?
Benefits of XBRL
Taxonomy
FS Manager
Practice Directions
Training Information
Software Products Compatible with ACRA Taxonomy
Available Help Resources
Users' Feedback Form
What XBRL means?
XBRL stands for “eXtensible Business Reporting Language”. XBRL is an online standard that uses the XML-based framework to present financial statements, so that financial information can be retrieved from online records of individual companies (if the information is prepared in XBRL) and transferred directly to regulators, financial analysts auditors and other users of accounting reports. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web.
Tags
XBRL works by adding ‘information about information’, through the use of ‘metadata’ or ‘descriptive data’ (tags). This allows computers to relate to or communicate with one another without human intervention.
XBRL.org
XBRL is a freely licensed standard. It is developed by a global consortium called XBRL.org, which comprises approximately 450 leading companies, associations, and agencies involved in providing or using business information.
Members of the global consortium comprise professional services and consulting companies, financial services and information providers, software and other technology providers, government and not-for-profit organisations, and accounting and trade organisations. These include the Big Four accounting firms, International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), UK Companies House, EDGAR Online, US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Korea Stock Exchange, Microsoft, Moody’s Investor Service, Morgan Stanley, New Zealand Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Stock Exchange of Thailand, Tokyo Stock Exchange, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, CPA Australia etc.
To date, XBRL has been adopted by major industry players, such as Dresdner Bank (to enhance its credit monitoring process), Bank of America, Microsoft (to streamline its data dissemination to various stakeholders), Morgan Stanley and Reuters.
Adoption by Regulators
XBRL has also been adopted by some regulators in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, China, US and UK for their regulatory filings. These include the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the UK Inland Revenue Authority, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Shenzhen and South Korea, the UK Companies House and the Swedish Companies Registration Office. The filings done with the last two regulators mentioned are related to financial statements.
Benefits of XBRL
With XBRL, ACRA seeks to achieve the following:
a. Providing greater access to corporate financial data
End-users of financial information can request for specific items in financial statements across a wide spectrum of companies, e.g. companies in similar industries for analysis or ‘benchmarking’ purposes. Such information may not be easily available currently for financial statements which are filed in Portable Document Format (PDF) or hardcopies. There is also less effort to be expended in the collating and manual re-keying of data . The potential users to benefit from XBRL include shareholders, investors, members of the public, banks and institutional lenders, stock brokers, credit bureaus, companies themselves, etc;
b. Facilitating ‘one-stop’ filing
With statements prepared in one standard format, in the long run, it would be possible for a one-stop filing agency to be established where companies need only file one set of financial statements with that agency (eg. ACRA), to fulfill their statutory financial reporting obligations. The same set of financial statements filed can be transferred to other regulatory agencies with similar filing requirements, e.g. IRAS;
c. Strengthening regulatory vigilance
With less effort expended in sieving through various report, collating and manual re-keying of data, regulators can devote more time to analyse data and performing their regulatory vigilance functions. Experiences in other countries show that XBRL has been instrumental in improving the regulator’s surveillance and vigilance functions and ACRA is likewise, also tapping on XBRL to improve efficiencies and the effectiveness of its surveillance and vigilance functions.
Taxonomy
- What is Taxonomy
In general, taxonomy refers to a ‘catalogue’ or ‘set of rules for classification’. In the XBRL context, taxonomy is similar to a ‘dictionary’, containing computer-readable definitions of business reporting terms as well relationships between them and links connecting them to human-readable resources (metadata). [Source:XBRL.org]
- Background on ACRA Taxonomy
In developing the ACRA taxonomy, ACRA worked with its consultants, relevant professionals and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS) to identify key financial items to be included in the ACRA taxonomy. ACRA’s taxonomy is primarily based on the requirements under Singapore Financial Reporting Standards (FRS), and closely modelled after the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy, with some modifications to cater for flexibility and ease of usage.
The ACRA taxonomy will also enable preparers to add user defined elements to the enumerated list of items.
- Illustrative Financial Statements
FS Manager can be used to prepare documents which are required to be laid before the AGM. A hardcopy of the documents prepared can be printed out and used for purposes of the Annual General Meeting. By doing so, companies need only prepare the documents once using FS Manager for purposes of the AGM and subsequent filing with ACRA.
Companies therefore need not use FS Manager to prepare the documents to be laid before the AGM . To facilitate the eventual filing of the accounts in XBRL, it would be advisable for companies to instruct the preparers to draw up the accounts following ACRA’s taxonomy. To assist companies with this respect, ACRA has drawn up a set of Illustrative Financial Statements as a guide for such preparation.
FS Manager
a. Background
FS Manager is a free online tool provided by ACRA as part of BizFile to help companies prepare and manage financial statements in XBRL format. Using FS Manager, company filers or relevant users (e.g. preparers of financial statements) can submit companies’ financials via completing a series of web-based forms. The web-based forms are designed in accordance with ACRA taxonomy requirements.
For ease of usage and flexibility, FS Manager incorporates the following features:
i. Users can use the system to prepare their companies’ financial statements at no charge;
ii. Logins are not required for mere preparations of financial statements using the ACRA system;
iii. Web-based forms are designed to provide maximum user-friendliness;
iv. Financial statements prepared using the system can be stored offline from ACRA’s system;
v. Users can save and convert the financial statements into PDF Format. The PDF document can be printed out and used for purposes of the Annual General Meeting; and
vi. The system will be fully interfaced with ACRA’s Bizfile system. All filings and relevant payments will still be done via Bizfile.
For companies that already have XBRL-enabled Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, they may be able to export their financial statements in accordance to ACRA’s taxonomy, and submit to ACRA via FS Manager. The company should get further details from its own vendor.
b. Accessing FS Manager
With effect from 1 May 2007, preparers of companies’ financial statements can access the FS Manager via “Prepare Financial Statements : Link to FS Manager” (without Singpass login) at the BizFile website www.bizfile.gov.sg
c. User Guide
Please click here to access the step-by-step guide on FS Manager. You can also access the User Guide directly online through FS Manager.
Practice Directions
For information on Practice Direction 2 of 2007 - Filing of Financial Statements with ACRA in XBRL please click here.
For information on Practice Direction 5 of 2007 – New Annual Return Form and Filing of Financial Statements in XBRL wef 1 November 2007, please click here.
Training Information
ACRA is working with several training partners for courses on the use of FS Manager. Click here for further details.
ACRA's Assessment of Software Products Compatible with ACRA Taxonomy
Scope of Assessment
- ACRA’s compatibility checks were based only on the instance document submitted by the vendor company and no assessment of the software product was carried out. ACRA did not verify that the instance document submitted by the vendor company was generated through the use of the software product.
- ACRA’s assessment was limited to whether the instance document submitted by the vendor company conforms with ACRA’s taxonomy. ACRA did not verify the accuracy of the content populated in FS Manager upon uploading of the instance document.
Disclaimer
- The list of software products only indicates the vendor companies which have submitted instance documents for ACRA’s assessment. The list does not imply endorsement of any of the software products or the vendor companies by ACRA.
- The links to vendor company websites are provided only as a convenience to you and in no way imply any affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement, or acceptance of any information or views provided on those linked websites.
Software Products Compatible with ACRA Taxonomy
Available Help Resources
Need help in using FS Manager? Want to understand more about filing in XBRL? Please kindly refer to the following available help resources:
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Available Help Resources |
Where To Find It |
| “Common Do's and Don'ts” of FS Manager |
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Comprehensive Step-By-Step FS Manager “User-Guide” |
Accessible at https://www.fsm.acra.gov.sg/
userguide/index.html . It can also be accessed directly online through the left hand navigation panel of FS Manager.
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| Ask ACRA – An Interactive FAQ Service |
Accessible at Ask ACRA(category: extensible business reporting language XBRL)
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| Helpdesk |
Tel: 6248 6028
To enable Helpdesk to respond to the problem quickly, please provide them with the following information:
- Nature of the problem;
- Message displayed on the screen (if any);
- Date and time the problem was encountered;
- Company registration number; and
- XBRL document
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Feedback Form
ACRA seeks your feedback to enable us to make further improvements to the system. Please click here to access the online feedback form.