Annual reporting serves a business purpose. It tells investors, analysts, and the market how your company performed. It explains strategy, communicates performance, and builds trust.
ESEF reporting serves a regulatory purpose. It transforms the same report into structured, machine-readable data using Inline XBRL tagging, making disclosures easier to analyse.
Despite their different objectives, both processes rely on the same underlying information.
In practice, tagging is the only meaningful difference between an annual report and an ESEF filing.
Tagging is most effective when applied to a finalized report, after data collection, drafting, reviews, approvals, design, and sign-off have been completed.
Many organizations still keep annual reporting and ESEF reporting on separate tracks until the final stages.
That disconnect often leads to duplicated effort, unnecessary complexity, and avoidable reporting risk.
When the Report and Filing Drift Apart
The reporting process often involves multiple teams, tools, and review cycles. As content moves between drafting, design, review, and filing environments, inconsistencies can emerge.
- Last-minute changes can create mismatches.
- Multiple versions make it harder for teams to keep reports accurate and aligned.
- Reviews become fragmented across stakeholders.
- Teams often discover errors late in the filing process.
The issue isn’t the report itself. It’s the disconnect between the processes used to produce it.
However, ESEF reporting workflow faces some additional challenges:
The FRC‘s review highlights several recurring issues.
1.Design Changes That Disrupt Tagging
Moving an annual report from a design environment to a tagging workflow can introduce formatting and structural issues.
Disclosures that span multiple pages may become disconnected. Elements that carry over from one page to the next can appear out of sequence. Visual elements may not render correctly in the final filing package.
What starts as a design change can quickly turn into a filing issue.
2. Tags That Drift from the Report
FRC reviews have identified instances where tagging omissions, design issues, or incomplete markup reduced the quality and usability of digital reports.
Once the tagged filing diverges from the published report, the concern shifts from presentation to data integrity.
3.Reviews That Rely on Assumptions
Another common issue occurs when stakeholders assume someone else reviewed the final filing.
- The design team assumes the tagging team checked the filing.
- The tagging provider assumes management performed the review.
- Management assumes a third-party reviewer validated everything.
As a result, no one performs a comprehensive review of the final filing package.
Responsibility becomes fragmented, and accountability becomes unclear.
How Disclosure Management Connects Drafting, Design, Review, and Tagging
IRIS CARBON® Disclosure Management unifies drafting, design, review, and ESEF tagging in a single AI-powered workflow.
Single Collaborative Workspace
Teams work from a single version of the report in a shared Microsoft 365-based environment.
Continuous Validation
The platform checks structure, tagging, and report quality as teams work, helping them find issues before final review.
Complete Audit Trail
Every change, review, approval, and tagging action is recorded, providing visibility and accountability throughout the reporting process.
InDesign Integration
Changes made at the source automatically flow through to designed reports, removing manual rework and keeping reporting content aligned.
AI-Powered XBRL Tagging
AI-assisted tagging applies taxonomy elements as teams create content, allowing tagging and report preparation to progress together.
One Intelligent Workflow from Start to Finish
When teams work in the same environment, they spend less time managing handoffs and more time improving reporting quality.
The result is a tighter process with fewer reporting gaps. The filing matches the annual report from draft to submission.
