Effective 1st July 2018, all qualifying entities in South Africa have to submit their Annual Financial Statements in Inline XBRL (iXBRL), a structured data reporting standard as opposed to PDF format. The CIPC has around 1.8 million active registered entities filing with it. The calculation of the Public Interest (PI) Score is an attribute for entities to comply with the mandate.
A subset of these entities – approximately 0.1 million companies qualify to file their AFS in iXBRL format. These are:-
- Public companies
- Qualifying Private companies
- State-owned companies
- Non-profit entities
- Qualifying Close Corporations
All Public, State-Owned and Non-Profit companies need to mandatorily file in iXBRL with the CIPC. Every domestic subsidiary needs to submit its own individual AFS, while foreign subsidiaries not registered with the CIPC dont have to. The CIPC also announced that companies that are not part of the filing criteria can also file their AFS on a voluntary basis. When a parent and subsidiary have different dates of incorporation, the parent entity must submit consolidated data for its subsidiaries up to its own date of incorporation.
Filing Criteria to Calculate your company’s Public Interest (PI) Score
If your entity falls under the below criteria, you will need to comply with the mandate:
- If your company has a Memorandum of Incorporation(MOI) that prescribes the filing of audited financial statements
- Any entity holds assets in a fiduciary capacity for persons who are not related to the company, and the aggregate value of such assets held at any time during the financial year exceeds R5 million
- Any private or personal liability company that has its AFS compiled internally and has a Public Interest Score(PIS) of 100 or more
- Any private or personal liability company that has its AFS compiled by a third party or an independent firm and has a Public Interest Score (PI Score)of 350 or more
The starting point for any entity is to check the Qualifying Criteria outlined above. For private entities and close corporations, the manner in which the AFS is compiled and Public Interest Score (PI Score) become important factors that decide if the entity is required to file in iXBRL or not.
Public Interest (PI) Score
The Public Interest score (PI Score) of the company is the interest of the public/investors in the Company. This score is calculated based on certain financial and non-financial parameters. Below we take a closer look at the attributes that lead to determining the PI Score of a company.
- Number of Employees
- Third-Party Liability of Company
- Turnover
- Number of Individuals with Beneficial Interest in Securities of Company or Members in case of Non-Profit Company
If a private entity or close corporation compiles its AFS internally (for example, by its financial director or one of the owners) and has a Public Interest (PI) Score of 100 or more it will necessarily need to file its AFS in iXBRL. On the other hand, if a private entity or close corporation compiles its AFS externally (for example, an independent auditor) and has a Public Interest (PI) Score of 350 or more filing AFS in iXBRL is mandatory.
We at IRIS have devised a PI Score Calculator for your to determine your Public Interest (PI) Score if you have to comply with the CIPC iXBRL Mandate or not. Alternatively, should you have any queries about the mandate or how to file with CIPC, please reach out to us at info@iriscarbon.com.
