Online Business Report: iXBRL

The online version of an annual report dramatically increases its reach. Not always this increase of reach is desired. There may be good reasons to restrict the dissemination of an annual report to the circle of the initiated or to comply only with the obligation to publish.

However, if the annual report was developed according to all the rules of the art (brand-building), there is hardly a reason to restrict it to a print version.

The material is usually – at least for a basic variant – already prepared; the texts are created and coordinated, as well as the graphics, diagrams and photographs.

The annual report can be offered worldwide with minimal extra effort; the price-performance ratio is ideal under publication aspects.
Annual Design therefore offers a web variant in form of a micro-site or a subdomain placement.

ESMA: iXBRL mandatory from 2020

According to ESMA’s decision, the ESEF XBRL will be available to all listed and IFRS companies in Europe from 2020 onwards.

This corresponds conceptually to IFRS accounting. That means that it is no longer sufficient in Europe to issue the annual report exclusively in printed form or as a PDF.

Instead, these annual reports in XBRL are to be transmitted to the Federal Gazettes (but not to ESMA).

ESMA intends to enforce Inline XBRL (iXBRL) as the delivery format; this is an HTML embedded XBRL. Such XBRL reports can be viewed with any web browser; it is actually an online report.

However, the obligation to report XBRL relates only to the main financial statements balance sheet, profit and loss, cash flow and equity.

The details in the appendix need not be identifiable by XBLR. On the one hand, this limits the workload for the companies subject to reporting, but on the other hand, of course, reduces transparency on the part of analysts and investors.

As a report agency, we recommend early entry into online reporting; In this way, experience can be gained until the mandatory introduction in 2020.

In addition, we believe that it makes sense to make the non-compulsory part of the annual report available online in order to use the brand value-enhancing image components. Because with the introduction of online mandatory reports, the use of print versions is expected to fall sharply; The previously used image structure through business reports would then be in question.

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