The IASB Foundation has initiated the task force as a follow-up to the pilot initiative recently concluded with US-listed foreign companies to produce US SEC-compliant IFRS financial reports in XBRL format.
The aim of the task force is for listed companies to produce fully-tagged financial statements using the IFRS Taxonomy. Detailed tagging up to level-4 will be applied to participants’ financial statements, whereby all primary financial statement line items and notes disclosures will be tagged using the IFRS Taxonomy 2011 (which is due to be published at the end of March 2011). The task force will be a means for the Foundation to engage with stakeholders and obtain feedback on the usability of the IFRS Taxonomy for filers and for users of filed XBRL content in the context of detailed note tagging.
The IFRS Foundation is seeking participation from preparers of financial statements for listed companies who report in IFRS. Participation from companies operating in all industries and geographical regions is welcome, and it would be particularly useful to have participation by foreign private issuers listed in the United States because of the expected requirement for foreign private issuers reporting in IFRS to submit IFRS XBRL filings from June 2011.
Companies interested in participating in the task force should express their interest by 10 April 2011. Task force participants will be chosen and notified by 15 April 2011. The first meeting of task force participants will take place on 18 April 2011 by teleconference. It is expected that participating companies will have sufficient knowledge to be able to produce detailed XBRL filings by the end of September 2011, which is when the initiative will be completed.
Participating companies will:
1. Examine major sections within financial statements - such as operating segments, share-based payments, property, plant and equipment, etc. - and the corresponding parts of the IFRS Taxonomy that relate to disclosures within those sections, with support and feedback from the IFRS Foundation XBRL Team.
2. Apply IFRS Taxonomy tags to financial statement note disclosures either in Microsoft Excel or Word or directly in XBRL, again with support and feedback from the IFRS Foundation XBRL Team.
3. Generate an XBRL file using their preferred software.
Participants will be expected to examine each of their financial statement note disclosures in detail, to undertake the tagging process and to share the results of this work with other participants via fortnightly one-hour conference calls and two one-day meetings which will take place in London.
Although participating companies will retain ultimate responsibility for preparing the XBRL filings, they will be working directly with the authors of the IFRS Taxonomy, who will provide assistance throughout the XBRL tagging and document creation process on:
- tagging and disclosure choices;
- compliance with filing rules and regulatory requirements; and
- filing review and rendering.
Participating companies will also be able to share and learn from the filings and from the experiences of other participants.
The IFRS Taxonomy 2011 has been developed and tested using a number of XBRL tools. However the IFRS Foundation does not recommend or endorse particular products. The IFRS Foundation XBRL Team is familiar with most XBRL products that are currently available on the market and is therefore happy to work with the software tools chosen by participating companies.
Press release
© IASB - International Accounting Standards Board
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