iXBRL Submission Flow Chart – Updated

Our launch webinar for iXBRL Mate in AuditMate / AccountsMate was incredible.

If you missed it or want to recap you can watch it right here: It’s an edited version to save you time!

Just in case you missed it or need a refresher…

https://itmates.co.za/watch-the-webinar/

AuditReviewFlow Chart.pdf

So what does the Co’s Act have to say about this?

• AFS are required to be prepared within 6 months of a company’s financial year end.
• AFS must be complete in all respects ie. Directors report, audit/review report, signed etc.

….and if this is not done?

• A reportable Irregularity exists
• Directors are guilty of a breach of fiduciary duty

So what happens next?

• When the audit/review commences the auditor/reviewer must report a Reportable Irregularity to CIPC/IRBA after discovery of the fact.
• The Directors will be informed and must take steps to rectify the situation before the auditors/reviewer makes a second report of CIPC/IRBA, within 30 days of the first report.
• If the AFS are not issued before the second report in ii.) above, the company can expect a compliance notice from CIPC in the near future.

What is a Compliance Notice?

A formal notice from CIPC demanding compliance by a specified date. Usually within 3 – 9 months.

How to respond?

Comply or suffer the consequences. Those could be up to 10% of Turnover during the period of non-compliance.

This isn’t new, but it would appear that CIPC are serious about stamping out continuous non- compliance so Directors, Auditors and Reviewers need to be serious about their timeliness too!

Read the Company’s Act for yourself. You will find this information in Section 30.

Hope this was helpful.

Firstly, What is XBRL?

XBRL is short for E(x)tensible (B)usiness (R)eporting (L)anguage, being the international standard for digital business reporting. This allows for the creation of computer files which contain financial reporting information which is not easily readable by humans. It is ideal for passing information between computers but is of little use when the information needs to be viewed by humans too.

Hence the creation of iXBRL

iXBRL or (I)nline XBRL is the international standard that enables both human-readable and structured, machine-readable data to be included in a single document. An iXBRL document is included in an xhtml file which can be opened in any web browser (e.g. Chrome). In this way the human-readable data is displayed in the browser and the machine readable is hidden from view. When the same file is read by the computer to which the file is ‘submitted,’ it will only read the machine readable data and ignore the human-readable bits.

Who Needs to Submit iXBRL AFS?

As most of you will know by now, CIPC in South Africa will require iXBRL format Annual Financial Statements to be submitted with Annual Returns for certain companies and close corporations as from 1 July 2018. This doesn’t apply to the Annual Financial Statements of many companies and CC’s that are produced using AuditMate / Accountsmate, so for many clients this is not applicable right now.

iXBRL filing is required when any of the following apply:
• Your entity has a Memorandum of Incorporation that prescribes filing of audited financial statements.
• Your entity is a private or personal liability company and, in the ordinary course of its primary activities, it holds assets in a fiduciary capacity for persons who are not related to the company, and the aggregate value of such assets held at any time during the financial year exceeds R5 million.
• Your entity is a private or personal liability company that compiles its AFSs internally (for example, by its financial director or one of the owners) and has a Public Interest Score (PIS) of 100 or more.
• Your entity is a private or personal liability company that has its AFSs compiled by an independent party (such as an external accountant) and has a Public Interest Score (PIS) of 350 or more.

So this is initially aimed at the larger, non-owner-managed entities.

What About Financial Accountability Supplements?

Financial Accountability Supplement (CoR 30.2) submissions are still required for all CC’s and Companies that are not required to submit Annual Financial Statements in iXBRL format.

However, in terms of Regulation 30(3) a company that is not required to have its AFS audited, may file its audited or reviewed AFS (in iXBRL format). This may be more efficient than completing a CoR 30.2, but only applies if the AFS are audited or reviewed.

How Can iXBRL Mate assist?

IT Mates has developed iXBRL Mate, probably the easiest to use Excel ‘tagging’ system available, to solve the problem of creating iXBRL submission files from existing Annual Financial Statements.

iXBRL Mate was show-cased at our webinar on 28 June 2018 and officially released as version 1.0.0.0 on 3 July 2018. It is available for download from www.itmates.co.za and is free to use until 31 August 2018. Please make use of this opportunity.

Contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.

We are excited!

iXBRL Mate is ready to launch and it wants to really take off!

We made this software to you, to solve a big problem – you can’t create a CIPC AFS submission without a software tool.

Our price is for unlimited submissions. Buy one licence (per computer) for your entire office and use it for as many clients as you need.

But even better…… until 31 July 2018, iXBRL Mate is free for you to use – no restrictions at all.

After the free trial the price will be R12 000 (excl. vat) per year, for the unlimited desktop version.

If you are in a hurry to submit an iXBRL file, we are offering a ‘white-glove’ solution. We will create the file for you and you just do the submission. The price for this option is R100 per page plus R650 (excl. vat). The turn around time will be a couple of days.

Get the download now

Please let us know your progress or if we can assist in any way.

Our launch webinar for iXBRL Mate was incredible – over 100 people attended but a lot also couldn’t make the live event.

If you missed it or want to recap you can watch it right here: It’s an edited version to save you time!

So, what is iXBRL? Here is a very condensed version of how I understand it.

The last couple of days I have dived into iXBRL to be able to get a better understanding. Carl explained it to me by saying, items in the financial statements are tagged with the same name so that everybody was reporting in the same way. I thought that sounded really simple and easy to understand, but then Carl is talented at explaining complicated things. Since then he has taken a few months sweating over creating iXBRL Mate, so I think it must be quite complex.

I listened to the SAICA webinar, read everything on the CIPC website, watched YouTube videos, looked at the various websites of software vendors for the front end and the back end development, and here I will document what I have learned.

In South Africa there are only about 100 000 (out of 1,8million) entities that will be required to submit AFS in iXBRL at this stage. They don’t all need to be submitted on 1 July 2018. The company needs to submit their iXBRL within 30 days of the anniversary month of the date of incorporation, with their latest available Annual Financial Statements.

The reasons the CIPC has decided to implement iXBRL are to keep up with how the rest of the world is doing things, and to improve efficiency and effectiveness in collecting and analyzing big volumes of data. This will ensure transparency and compliance. The data will be used for research into the big picture of how businesses are doing in SA, and compare business sectors so that struggling industries can be detected early.

The benefits of iXBRL are that investors and stakeholders will have more reliable information and therefore be able to do analysis and decision making faster and more effectively.

Oh and…. What is it? It is standardized digital financial reporting. That to me seems the easiest way to understand it.

The CIPC assure us that all information will be safe and secure so that nobody who is not allowed to look at that information will be able to reach it. They may share the data with anybody they so choose.

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Written by Carol Robinson