ESEF - Uniform Electronic Financial Reporting Format
As of 2020, IFRS annual reports must be submitted in ESEF/iXBRL format. ESMA's requirement to introduce the "European Single Electronic Format" means the end of analog annual reports in PDF format by 2020 at the latest.
The goal is transparency and comparability.
The new digital format offers great advantages to users of the annual reports, in particular investors and analysts, as it enables automated transfer to rating systems and other third-party applications for the first time. Much manual and error-prone effort is eliminated. This is made possible by transferring a generic chart of accounts for all IFRS positions based on XRBL taxonomies. Company-specific items must be defined as taxonomy extensions.
The change and the introduction of the ESEF format represent a considerable conversion effort for listed companies and companies preparing their accounts in accordance with IFRS.
On the one hand, the core taxonomy has to be adapted by the company and the tagging/mark up process has to be gone through; on the other hand, the regular changes to IFRS and thus to the taxonomy represent an ongoing challenge for companies.
Issuers must publish their IFRS consolidated financial statements in Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language (XHTML) format and embed structured data in the freely licensed inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (iXBRL).
Furthermore, the requirement to publish annual financial reporting in iXBRL format must be implemented on the system side.
Recommendation for action
At CALEO, we offer you a free initial consultation or an individual strategy and goal-setting workshop, the result of which is the basis for subsequent implementation.
Contact us!