Common Challenges Faced While Filing iXBRL Financial Statements

A new financial year brings in new financial reporting challenges. Whether it is due to the economic slowdown or the post-pandemic effect, companies worldwide are struggling to get back on track.

Experts say that communication is key; a control over internal control systems and processes will help, but to what end? Financial reporting was and still remains a challenge for most organisations.

In its efforts to streamline reporting in the financial world, the CIPC introduced iXBRL, a machine and human-readable language that can handle and analyse data efficiently. Let’s shed some light on these areas and discover solutions that can help.

Challenges that businesses are facing while filing iXBRL financial statements:

• The Taxonomies and Process of Tagging in Taxing

A taxonomy is, in retrospect, a dictionary linking each tag with the concept it identifies. And learning this dictionary by heart is crucial for organisations required to file iXBRL financial reports, which is a tedious task.

Furthermore, the process of tagging requires a user to match the appropriate tag to the relevant item in the statutory accounts, which requires prowess in tagging and IFRS taxonomy.

• Key Personnel Dependency

Someone pulls data from the system, enters more data, tags some accounts and then something magical happens to it before it is finally submitted to the CIPC.

But what did they do? What happens if they leave?

Dependency on a single person for iXBRL financial reporting can be extremely troublesome. If this person leaves or is absent even for a day, there can be a serious disruption and data loss.

• The Fear of Rejection

As mentioned above, there are taxonomies to be comprehended for iXBRL filing. And each taxonomy includes several thousand tags, which in turn, mirror a specific accountancy concept. Understanding these tags is one thing, but applying them accurately is a whole different story.

All data items presented in the financial reports must be tagged. And, if a data item appears more than once, it must be tagged each time. With so many intricacies, it becomes almost impossible to submit iXBRL financial reports in one go.

The Solution Lies Within One Word – Outsource iXBRL

Whether you are looking to improve the financial reporting process, reduce costs, or submit iXBRL financial reports successfully to the CIPC, outsourcing is the ideal solution.

A dependable and experienced iXBRL partner is all you need.

DataTracks, a global leader in iXBRL conversion services, can be the ideal iXBRL partner. Boasting an experience of over 16+ years, DataTracks has successfully submitted over 1,95,000 compliance reports for over 19,400 clients all across the world.

With DataTracks by your side, you don’t have to:-

• Worry about getting your reports rejected as DataTracks produces error-free iXBRL reports.
• Depend on single personnel as DataTracks has an army of iXBRL experts.

What’s more, these professionals have the expertise and experience in iXBRL tagging and taxonomy, so that’s another problem out the window.

For more information about the iXBRL services, please speak to a Datatracks expert @ +27-10-446-9061 or email at enquiry@datatracks.co.za