Customer Profile
ASBIS Group is one of the leading distributors of Information and Communications Technology products and solutions in EMEA Emerging Markets: Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Commonwealth of the Independent States, the Middle East, and Africa, combining a broad geographical reach with a wide range of products distributed on a “one-stop-shop” basis.
The ASBIS Group, established in 1990, is based in Cyprus and specializes in distributing IT components, blocks, and peripherals with 33 warehouses in 26 countries. Its operations extend to Central-Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and North Africa.
The Group has a centralized purchasing system controlled from its Cypriot headquarters buying from worldwide leading manufacturers of computer components, blocks, and peripherals.
The Group supplies the vast geography that it covers through three master distribution centers located in the Czech Republic, the UAE (Dubai), and China. Shipments are made to master distribution centers. These shipments are then split, enabling the Group to deliver a full range of products in-country, thus creating greater efficiency and lowering transport costs.
Business Challenges
The team at ASBIS was unfamiliar with the process of transforming their annual report into iXBRL format. ASBIS encountered challenges while using the latest ESEF taxonomy, tagging the line items per relevant ESEF concepts, defining extensions and anchoring, and performing validation tests. So, to comply with the ESEF mandate, ASBIS sought a vendor that came with extensive XBRL knowledge and expertise.
Why ASBIS Chose IRIS CARBON®
Due to the following criteria, ASBIS agreed to an outsourcing contract with IRIS CARBON® to commence its ESEF compliance procedure
Free First-Year Subscription For ESEF Filing
Team ASBIS wanted an ESEF compliance solution that was cost-effective and budget-friendly. In 2019, IRIS CARBON® already had a ‘Small-Company-Offer,’ under which companies with a market capitalization of less than Euro 100 million were granted a free ESEF reporting solution/services for the first year of their ESEF filing. This was an excellent opportunity for ASBIS.
A combination of excellent product characteristics and demonstrations, along with an incredible offer, convinced ASBIS to trust IRIS CARBON® for their ESEF filing.
Outstanding XBRL and iXBRL Expertise
ASBIS sought an ESEF solution that was user-friendly and made compliance with the recently launched ESEF mandate straightforward. Team ASBIS evaluated several software vendors. IRIS CARBON® outshined other solutions because of the strong XBRL and iXBRL expertise and had a vast product reach across 23 countries.
“ESEF mandate was new and we had no experience on how to proceed with the submission. We even had to identify how to align the compliance process with our auditors. The IRIS CARBON® as a product was packed with the most advanced functionalities to comply with the ESEF mandate successfully. The training sessions organized by IRIS CARBON®ʼs team detailed in steps the entire filing process. In comparison with other competitors, IRIS CARBON®ʼs customer service was very prompt as they responded quickly and offered resolutions with complete time flexibility.”
“IRIS CARBON®ʼs readiness of the product ahead of the times and great success rate with the U.S. SEC filings gave us a clear picture of them being well prepared about the roadmap to the error-free filing.”
Loizos Papavasssiliou,
Financial Controller at ASBIS quotes
Project Objectives
With the above-mentioned challenges in view, the following project objectives for ESEF reporting were defined
The IRIS CARBON® Approach
ASBIS’s ESEF reporting was handled by IRIS CARBON® in the following manner
1. Performing A Dry-Run On The 2019 Annual Report
IRIS CARBON® began by conducting a dry run by leveraging ASBIS’s already published 2019 annual report. It was essential to load ASBIS’s 2019 annual report onto the IRIS CARBON® platform during this dry run process. The relevant tags for ASBIS’s 2019 annual report were selected from the ESEF taxonomy and applied to the report. In the absence of appropriate tags, experts at IRIS CARBON® created extensions. These extensions were then further defined by anchoring relationships.
2. Converting The 2020 Annual Report To iXBRL Format
ASBIS provided the annual report data for the fiscal year 2020, which was further loaded on the IRIS CARBON® platform. Like the dry-run process of 2019, a similar process was followed for the 2020 ESEF filing. Using the rollover function of IRIS CARBON®, the tags used in the 2019 iXBRL annual report were reapplied to the 2020 annual report. Additional tags, extensions, and anchoring relationships were applied, wherever needed.
3. Training Sessions On How To Review The iXBRL Files Generated
The 2020 iXBRL annual report was now shared with team ASBIS for review. IRIS CARBON® organized training sessions to provide an overview of the dashboard to help team ASBIS track the progress of reviewing the iXBRL 2020 annual report. The XBRL experts team discussed the key ideas describing the annual report review process. These training sessions were primarily intended to familiarise the ASBIS team with the IRIS CARBON® platform. For inculcating relative understanding, the IRIS CARBON® team used their recently created 2020 iXBRL annual report for demonstrating the entire review process.
IRIS CARBON® platform review module made it easy for team ASBIS to approve the applied XBRL tags on the 2020 iXBRL annual report. Team ASBIS leveraged the IRIS CARBON® platform’s ‘commenting’ feature to submit queries where there were issues that required more clarification. The ‘commenting’ feature allowed submitting change requests if any. This feature enabled them to connect directly with the XBRL expert team at IRIS CARBON® who promptly reverted to the queries posed by the ASBIS team through the platform, there and then.
What made the IRIS CARBON® platform special was a summary of the ʻdashboardʼ. This helped in monitoring the entire reviewing process of the iXBRL 2020 annual report. The dashboard indicates if the applied tag was accepted, pending, or rejected. It even showed the comment status, like – the number of comments that have been addressed or are still pending. The dashboard provided both teams with real-time visibility into the reviewing process and the progress of the specified remarks.
These sessions explained how to review tags using the platform review module through various video recordings and IRIS CARBON® educational videos. On the completion of these hands-on sessions, team ASBIS was able to validate their 2020 iXBRL files, expeditiously.
4. Seeking For Auditorʼs Approval On The iXBRL Tags
The auditors reviewed ASBISʼs 2020 iXBRL annual report and signed off the same. This meant that tags applied on the 2020 iXBRL annual report were approved by the auditor and the same tags can be leveraged while creating the next year’s (2021) iXBRL annual report. This 2020 iXBRL annual report was approved by the auditor.
5. Developing The 2021 iXBRL Annual Report For Live ESEF Filing
For the 2021 ESEF filing, the previously prepared 2020 iXBRL annual report was used as a base document. Like the creation of the 2020 iXBRL annual report, a similar process was followed for the 2021 iXBRL annual report. The robust things and critical points were taken care of by the IRIS CARBON® team. The process became much more streamlined this year. Therefore, there was a quicker turnaround time in creating the.
6. Validating The 2021 iXBRL Annual Report Using An Integrated Validator
Once the 2021 iXBRL annual report was prepared, team ASBIS then run it through a validator. IRIS CARBON® platform came with an XII-certified ʻBushchatʼ validator, that enabled ASBIS to conduct real-time validations and instantly identify the errors in the iXBRL 2021 annual report. This saved much time and ensured that the resulting file was error-free and of the highest possible quality.
7. Incorporating Auditor’s Feedback And Moving Ahead With The Live-Filling
ASBIS shared the opinion of the auditors with team IRIS CARBON®. On receipts of auditors’ opinion for the 2021 ESEF documents. The changes were then incorporated in the 2021 iXBRL annual report. The final iXBRL documents were then handed back to ASBIS for submission purposes. In 2022, ASBIS successfully filed the 2021 annual report in the iXBRL format with the regulator.
Key Results Achieved
ASBIS was able to meet its compliance objectives by selecting IRIS CARBON® as its preferred ESEF reporting software. The IRIS CARBON® platform guarantees the highest level of quality and support at all times.
Here are the most significant results found at a glance
