Introduction to IRIS CARBON® for ESEF Reporting
With a pedigree that goes back almost 2 decades in the regulatory technology space, IRIS has been at the helm of structured digital reporting, developing and implementing solutions in over 40 countries for regulators and filers alike. When it comes to ESEF expertise, our flagship product, IRIS CARBON®, has been used in over 200 implementations in the EU and UK including some of the largest multinational companies in the world. A 400+ strong team of dedicated XBRL experts that include domain specialists, software engineers, and data scientists are responsible for delivering stellar results for our clients.
IRIS CARBON® is a SaaS-based collaborative platform hosted securely on the cloud, enabling issuers to prepare their Annual Financial Reports (AFRs) in line with iXBRL reporting requirements per the ESEF mandate.
A hardware-agnostic implementation allows us to deliver several capabilities to users that include everything from the preparation of an iXBRL document natively on the platform, to tagging, reviewing, and filing with the regulator. Our class-leading 24×7 customer support provides added reassurance to filers if they face obstacles along their filing journey.
Being an ISAE 3000 and 3402 certified disclosure management platform, IRIS CARBON® guarantees a standard for assurance over non-financial information and follows the prescribed guidelines for performance, quality management, and ethical behavior.
In this blog, we will briefly look at 5 features that make IRIS CARBON® indispensable to ESEF iXBRL filers and touch upon what is to come in the future.
1. Auto-tagging from the Reference Document
Auto-tagging is an IRIS CARBON(R) feature that allows filers to use a prior year’s document to tag the current one. It reads the line item label from the statement and searches for the appropriate element in the taxonomy based on that label. It then assigns the correct tag to the value reported in the statement. Auto-tagging inside IRIS CARBON(R) can be performed either “By Label” or “By Value”. The former is used when both documents (prior and current) are in the same language and labels can be matched, whereas the latter is used when documents are in different languages with no possibility of matching labels. While auto-tagging tags concepts in the current document, calendar, unit, scaling, and members still need to be manually assigned.
2. Automatic Presentation and Definition Linkbase Creation
After auto-tagging has been completed, the company taxonomy needs to be created. This consists of 4 linkbases: presentation, calculation, definition, and label linkbases.
The presentation linkbase defines how XBRL concepts should be presented and displayed and helps in replicating the order of line items as they would be seen on a financial report. The definition linkbase defines other additional relationships between elements such as those between elements of a general nature and that of a specific nature or between those that can be categorized based on certain parameters. The IRIS CARBON(R) platform makes it extremely easy for filers to create the presentation and definition linkbases with the click of a button.
3. In-built IRIS Bushchat® Validation
After the review process has been completed, it is imperative to run spot checks on the iXBRL document to check if it complies with XBRL Specification rules. Validation results are primarily classified into 2 categories: errors and warnings. While errors indicate fundamental mistakes in tagging that need to be corrected before submitting to the regulator, warnings are less severe and indicative of inconsistencies that need to be checked and verified. Importantly, iXBRL documents can pass with the latter but not with the former. Using IRIS CARBON(R)’s fully integrated, in-house, XII-certified XBRL validator, users can run 3 different checks to ensure conformance with validation rules defined by the regulator. These are duplicate checks, calculation checks, and basic validation that covers all XBRL-specific rules and ESEF-specific validations.
4. Pre-defined Reports
IRIS CARBON(R) makes several predefined Excel reports available to filers at the click of a button. These reports enable preparers to delve deeper into a particular project and can serve as an auditor’s working paper. 7 predefined reports are available to use on the platform today. These are:
- Unused Elements Report – provides a detailed list of unused elements.
- Extension Elements Report – provides a detailed list of extension elements.
- Tagged Elements Report – provides a detailed list of tagged elements.
- All Comments Report – provides a detailed report of all comments raised on the platform.
- App Logger Report – provides a detailed list of all events transpiring on the platform with timestamps.
- Complete XBRL Report – provides a detailed report of all elements in the document along with the taxonomy legend.
- XBRL Review Log – provides a detailed list of all actions taken by a reviewer on the platform with timestamps.
5. iXBRL Previewer Link
One of IRIS CARBON(R)’s USPs is the ability to generate an external iXBRL Previewer Link directly from the platform once the document has been prepared. This allows companies to publish a link to their iXBRL-tagged annual report directly on their corporate website with the help of IRIS CARBON(R)’s bundled XBRL viewer. There are two settings available to filers once the link has been generated viz., public or private. IRIS CARBON(R) advises companies to keep the link private until the document has been filed successfully with the regulatory authority. Publishing the annual report in iXBRL greatly enhances the interactability and overall usability of the report for investors and analysts alike who are presented with additional information on fact.
In addition to these features, IRIS CARBON(R) is also equipped with the ability to perform block tagging of notes in company disclosures as required by the second phase of the ESEF mandate. As a SaaS-based regulatory technology platform that is constantly evolving to keep up with changing regulations, new features and capabilities are continuously brought in to enable filers to be on the cutting edge of XBRL reporting. IRIS CARBON(R) is a member of XBRL Europe and is committed to providing the best-in-class report preparation and filing experience to its customers.
