The Central Statistics Office (CSO) Ireland has successfully piloted the use of a new business reporting technology, XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), in one of its quarterly industry surveys. Fujitsu Software Corporation and PricewaterhouseCoopers worked with the CSO in developing this solution. This is the first live implementation of XBRL in Ireland .
XBRL is a language which describes the content and structure of business reports, ranging from small form-based sets of data to full financial statements. XBRL facilitates the structuring of financial information in a manner that can be easily understood by computers. XBRL is XML based and facilitates the transmission, storage and processing of this information over the Internet.
The CSO pilot involved the creation of an XBRL version of one of the CSO forms - the Quarterly Accounts Inquiry to Industry. This survey covers all enterprises with 20 or more persons engaged in the Mining, Manufacturing and Energy sectors and reports on changes in stocks, acquisitions and sales of capital assets during a quarter. Seven respondent companies participated in the pilot and successfully submitted data electronically using the XBRL solution.
Fujitsu Software Corporation used its XBRL toolkit, Interstage® XWand(tm), to define an XBRL taxonomy for the report - this specified the type and structure of the data sought. PricewaterhouseCoopers designed a Microsoft Excel form which exported data as an XBRL instance document, allowing responding companies to create the XBRL report. Both Fujitsu Software Corporation and PricewaterhouseCoopers worked with the CSO to ensure that the XBRL data could be quickly and efficiently processed by the CSO.
One of the key features of the pilot was that the use of Excel allowed the XBRL version of the form to be created easily by the respondent companies in a working environment that is familiar to them. When the adoption of XBRL increases in Ireland , the publication of the taxonomy will facilitate companies to complete the survey directly from their accounting systems, making it easier to comply with CSO reporting obligations.
The CSO's head of e-Government, Maureen Delamere said "The CSO is committed to continually exploring ways of reducing the burden on our data providers. We are very pleased at having led the way with the first implementation of XBRL in Ireland and are delighted at how successful our pilot was. This is an important milestone and the CSO is keen to further explore the opportunities presented by XBRL."
Fujitsu Software Corporation's Director, Declan Jones added, "It was great to work on such a groundbreaking project, in which XBRL now becomes a reality in Ireland . Showcasing our XBRL strength is an obvious plus point for Fujitsu Software Corporation but it is the fact that the pilot has positive implications for companies and organisations both private and public who will benefit from the arrival of XBRL based electronic reporting which heightens the profile of this initiative for us".
PricewaterhouseCoopers' XBRL Champion, Richard Day commented, "We were delighted to help CSO pilot the use of XBRL for such a practical application. They have demonstrated that the benefits that XBRL brings are very relevant to Irish business. It is now time for companies and regulators to incorporate XBRL into their internal and external reporting processes to help reduce the reporting and regulatory burden on corporate Ireland ".
