Companies regulators Showcase
Filing of annual accounts with the
National Bank of Belgium:
a success story
Presented by:
Luc Dufresne,Head of Department Microeconomic analysis and
Camille Dümm, XBRL business analyst, CBSO
National Bank of Belgium
17th International Conference
May 5th - 8th, 2008
Eindhoven
Agenda
• Context and history
• The project
• Evaluation - figures and lessons learned
• Next steps
• Live Demo
2
Legal context
• Gathering and spread
– The Central Balance Sheet Office collects annually
340.000 annual accounts from 320.000 companies
and publishes the annual accounts as PDF files
• Statistical mission
– Data from standardized annual accounts are handled
to produce accurate data for official bodies (National
accounts)
– Production of statistics per activity sector
3
History
• Electronic filing since 1993
– Proprietary format (text file)
– Heavy to maintain
– On floppy disk
• Filing through Internet since 2004
– In answer to the 1st European Directive
– With digital certificate
– Slow adoption because floppy disk was still an option
4
XBRL purposes
• Why XBRL
– Increase flexibility in the process
– Make the technical maintenance easier
– Harmonize the data format and exchange with other
regulators
– Prepare electronic filing of annual accounts drawn up
according to IFRS
5
Project planning
Phase 1
Taxonomy
Annual accounts
01/2005
NBB
10/2006
Tests
P
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n
Phase 2
Taxonomy
Non profit
10/2007
Tests
P
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Software vendors
01/04/2007
17/03/2008
6
Evaluation - Figures
From April 2th till December 31th 2007
Filing channel of annual accounts
Paper
15%
Paper
Internet
85%
PDF
PDF
XBRL - Private softwares
XBRL
XBRL - Sofista
7
Objectives achieved ?
• Flexibility ?
– To some extent - not yet in terms of extensions
• Maintenance ?
– Developments costs were cut by 40% for the second
application
• Exchange harmonization ?
– Information has to be given only once
– Foreseen projects with other Belgian regulators
• Ready for IFRS ?
– Ready but not yet applied for individual financial
statements
8
Lessons learned
• Importance of the communication
– On the website
• Extensive information (Taxonomy, sample cases,...)
available as soon as possible
– With software vendors
• Contacts trough working groups,
• Tests sessions, test-environment available
– With end-users
• Transparency of the application - "Keep it simple"
• Road shows for accountants and professionals
9
Lessons learned
• Technical issues
– Lack of specifications and generic tools
• Formula linkbase missing
• Internal developments
– Helpdesk overloaded
• Questions about digital certificate
• Permanent internal helpdesk
– Seasonal profile (summer peak)
• Maximize automatic data processing
• Infrastructure capacity
10
Targets 2008
• CBSO target - 90% filings XBRL
• Remaining paper or PDF
– Specific formats (financial sector, foreign companies, ...)
– Consolidated accounts (IFRS, BE-gaap, ...)
11
Next steps
• CBSO projects
– Use of XBRL data available
• Company report (comparative analysis)
• Tool to extract data from XBRL instance
– Extension to other kind of financial statements
• If significant volume
• Eventually in collaboration with other regulators
12
Next steps
• Belgian projects
– Federal Service Economy - Statistical business
survey
– Federal Service Finance - XBRL taxonomy for
corporate tax declaration
•
•
Will be done in close collaboration with NBB-experts
To create a common basis for other future taxonomies for
regulators
13
Contact Information
• XBRL Belgium
– www.xbrl.be
• CBSO project
– ba.helpdesk@nbb.be
14
Click to edit Master title style
Live demo
15
Process
Software
package
(private)
Instance
document
Taxonomy
Module 1
CBSO PDF
WWW
Data
Entry
CBSO
Data Entry
Filing
Application
XBRL
files
Module 4
Validator
Database
CBSO
Rendering
Module 2
Module 3
16
Taxonomy
Entry points
Common
Module
17
Data Entry - Options
Type
Options
18
Data Entry - Identification
Annual
account
Company
19
Data Entry
Accounting
data
20
Data Entry - Validation
Validation
Save
Visualization
21
Data Entry - Visualization
22
Data Entry - Correction
23