Overview
ESEF is a new filing requirement, which delivers your annual report in a digital package (XHTML) and includes additional data and information ‘tagged’ (iXBRL) to the content of the report. These iXBRL tags are based on the IFRS taxonomy, but adapted for use in the ESEF report.
Timings and requirements update
Following the confirmation of a one year delay in the UK, the ESEF filing will now be required for reports on accounting years beginning on or after 1st January 2021. This means it will affect reports published from February 2022 onwards.
In addition, it has recently been confirmed in the UK that audit and board sign off of the iXBRL tagging will not be mandatory, which should make the early years of ESEF reporting simpler for companies and service providers to implement.
For full details on these updates, see our ESEF Update – Jan 2021.
iXBRL solutions
Over the past few years, our team has fully tested many options for delivering iXBRL reports. The solutions have been improving significantly in recent months and there are now a number of recommended solutions to meet different needs, all of which are all cost-effective, fully-tested and compatible with reporting software and workflows.
Options include: post-production tagging; semi-integrated tagging in parallel with report creation; and fully-integrated, digital-led report creation and tagging, with cost effective online reporting output.
All of our recommended solutions can deliver the ESEF filing with minimal impact on your established processes.
What can you do now?
We have the solutions and processes in place if you wish to do a trial run or voluntary filing during 2021, enabling you to be fully ready for next year’s mandatory filings. We have started ESEF preparations with clients and many have pilot already completed ESEF reports – we look forward to continuing these preparations with all our clients over the coming months.
If you have any questions about ESEF, or would like to discuss starting your preparations, please get in touch.
Related article: ESEF Update - Jan 2021
Related article: ESEF webinar – how to comply with confidence