Customer Profile
Eni is an Italian multinational oil and gas supermajor operating in 68 countries across the globe. Initially an acronym for Entre Nazionale Idrocarburi, or National Hydrocarbons Board, it has operated in various sectors including refining, extraction, distribution machinery, nuclear power, chemicals and plastics, mining, textiles, hospitality, and event news.
Its many diversified and local development initiatives have been launched in line with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) showing its commitment to achieving a better and more sustainable future for all.
Eni has 16 subsidiaries and affiliates through which they operate in the domestic and international markets. These companies include everything from those that manage the production and marketing of clean components of petrol and methanol to Italy’s largest chemical company in terms of turnover, production volumes, and manpower.
Business Challenges
Eni’s journey with ESEF reporting began in 2020 when filing with their Officially Appointed Mechanism (OAM), the Companies and Stock Exchange Commission (CONSOB), was still voluntary. There were 3 broad challenges facing them at the time:
The novelty of the ESEF iXBRL mandate and its associated challenges
Owing to how nascent the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) was at the time, Eni’s financial reporting team was unsure about the best way forward to tackle the oncoming mandate for their own Annual Financial Report (AFR).
Choosing between a Disclosure Management solution and a standalone platform
One of the first challenges they faced was deciding what kind of solution to go ahead with. This involved deciding whether a Disclosure Management (DM) system would be better suited to realizing their objective of complying with the mandate as opposed to a standalone ESEF platform/service. Getting a large reporting team used to working with an entirely new format and choosing between the two routes to compliance was a critical business decision.
Seamless integration with their existing systems and processes
Eni also had to ensure that its system, platform, or service of choice did not disrupt its internal processes and workflows and worked seamlessly in conjunction with them. With their reporting team already trying to acclimatize to the nuances of the new mandate, it became imperative for Eni to find a solution that would augment its existing systems.
Why Choose IRIS CARBON®?
After surveying a host of different ESEF filing vendors and understanding their offerings, Eni had a better idea about the kind of solution that would serve their purpose and do so in a fashion that was complementary to their in-house systems and practices.
Eni eventually came to a decision and chose to go ahead with IRIS CARBON® for 4 main reasons:
Project Objectives
Eni had 4 broad objectives with this undertaking that were non-negotiable and critical to its decision to choose IRIS CARBON®. These were:
The IRIS CARBON® Approach
2019 ESEF iXBRL Report Creation Using their SEC iXBRL filing
The IRIS CARBON® team began by using Eni’s US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing as a starting point to set up their 2019 Annual Report for ESEF iXBRL tagging. Since the ESEF mandate requires extension elements to be linked to an appropriate element in the ESEEF taxonomy, anchoring relationships were defined to ensure full compatibility with submission guidelines.
After reviewing Eni’s 2019 SEC filing for its iXBRL tags, the IRIS CARBON® expert team came up with a Quality Report that suggested improvements to their iXBRL tagging, along with the reasoning. This report was then presented to Eni’s team for their sign-off. All suggestions were subsequently approved, allowing us to proceed to the next step.
Once we were assured that Eni was happy with the iXBRL tagging set-up, we began incorporating the changes in their 2019 Annual Report which was imported to our platform.
Training Eni Team Members
Eni’s internal teams were trained by IRIS CARBON® over multiple sessions that introduced them to the XBRL standard, using the ESEF taxonomy, how and what to review concerning iXBRL tagging, validating files, checking for errors and warnings, generating output files for submission and a lot more.
Furthermore, a hands-on session gave Eni’s team added reassurance and allowed them to get a hands-on experience with the platform using the aforementioned 2019 iXBRL report that was set up for this purpose. Their team received guidance on how to communicate change requests through the platform using the commenting feature and how to use dashboards to track the progress of the review. This was reviewed and approved by Eni as well.
Creating the 2020 ESEF iXBRL Report
In a bid to test the end-to-end ESEF filing process for their 2020 AFR in a simulated environment, Eni’s 2019 iXBRL-tagged document was used as a base and their 2020 iXBRL tagged AFR was created. This allowed them to prepare for subsequent filings and gave them a better understanding of the timelines they would have to work with.
Reviewing the 2020 iXBRL Report and Subsequent Creation of the 2021 iXBRL
Eni ran their 2020 iXBRL AFR through the IRIS CARBON® Review Module which allowed them to seamlessly review and approve the tagging of their 2020 document, raise change requests, and ask for any clarifications they needed.
They received real-time alerts and notifications from IRIS CARBON®’s expert team every time they raised a comment using the commenting feature. These comments were acknowledged on-the-fly and addressed promptly. Once resolved, Eni received an intimation through the platform informing them of the most current status.
Eni also ran validations on the IRIS CARBON® platform using the integrated XII-certified IRIS Bushchat® validator. This enabled them to verify that the generated ESEF Zip Package was 100 % error-free.
Publication of the 2020 ESEF iXBRL Report
Eni has been at the forefront of ESEF iXBRL adoption, being one of the first Italian conglomerates to voluntarily file their 2020 Annual Report in iXBRL. Eni published the ESEF package and also the interactive IRIS CARBON® iXBRL viewer link on the ‘Budgets and Reports’ section of their corporate website.
2021 iXBRL Creation and Subsequent Publication of The First Mandatory ESEF Report
Eni’s first mandatory 2021 iXBRL was created using their 2020 iXBRL that was previously approved. The same set of tags used in the 2020 iXBRL was reapplied to the 2021 annual report by our XBRL expert teams. Our teams further reviewed and validated the ESEF package before providing access to the Eni team for their review.
Eni’s team reviewed the tagging and validated the report using the IRIS CARBON® platform and published their 2021 ESEF iXBRL AFR with the regulator and on their corporate website. The link to the 2021 annual report can be found here, the IRIS CARBON Interactive Viewer link to view the report in ESEF format can be accessed from here.
“I wish to express my gratitude to the IRIS team for their engagement and professionalism in supporting Eni with the ESEF mandate. They were quick to understand our internal processes and align with them. This synergy between us led to a really positive filing experience.”
Roberto Nardi
Head of Consolidated Financial Statements and Reporting
Key Results Achieved
There were 5 key results that the IRIS CARBON® team was able to achieve for Eni through the course of their latest ESEF filing for 2021:
Eni lauded the IRIS CARBON® platform for seamlessly integrating with their existing processes and workflows much better than all the other vendors that were under their consideration, as well as the depth of knowledge that was demonstrated regarding accounting best practices and ESEF iXBRL filings. The platform’s ability to produce an output that was in line with their expectations whilst working in conjunction with their internal systems was a huge positive for Eni.
