UNECE / Eurostat
06-08 Novembre 2006
Luxembourg – the Central
Balance Sheet Office and the
XBRL project
GONZALEZ Patricia
LAW 19 DECEMBER 2002
Filing of annual accounts (50 000 entreprises concerned)
Turnover  100 000 € regardless of legal form
Annual accounts:
• balance sheet, profit and loss account, notes to the
accounts
• management report
• auditing report
• detailed accounts according to the standardized chart of
accounts
Exceptions
• insurance and banking companies
• non profit organisations, foundations, agricultural
associations
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DISCLOSURE OF ANNUAL ACCOUNTS
Differences in disclosure policy
• Data on incorporated enterprises is publicly available
• Data is not available for sole proprietorships
• Detailed data on accounts is only available to BSO and
other administrations (e.g. Tax authorities)
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RELATIONSHIP: RCS-STATEC
Law 2002 - Article 76
Annual accounts  RCS  Statec
for archiving purposes, to hold data on IT support media
2003 Parliament and Council Directive 2003/58 on disclosure
requirements for certain types of companies (not only annual
accounts)
Following functions:
– RCS will be in charge of electronic data collection,
scanning images
– Role of Statec is to prepare structured data collection, i.e.
develop specifications for paper and electronic
questionnaires/forms
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STAKEHOLDERS
• STATEC - Service central de la statistique et des études économiques
• RCS
- Registre de commerce et des sociétés
• Ministry of Justice
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THE CBSO PROJECT
The Central Balance Sheet Office aim is
• to collect data from non financial companies,
• to analyse the data and establish statistics,
• to disseminate the data to public and private users.
Structured data issued from the annual accounts.
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THE CBSO PROJECT – CURRENT STATE
• Several feasibility studies: implementation of the CBSO,
modernisation of the filing procedure, use of XBRL.
• CBSO has developed static paper forms.
• Forms have to be validated by the Accounting
Standards Committee.
• Annual accounts are filed in on paper only and there is
no electronic way to file them.
• Companies have to accomplish different steps for filing
in their accounts – important administrative burden.
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WHY CHOOSING XBRL?
XBRL as a reporting standard :
• Enables the electronic filing of the annual accounts
• Avoids data manipulation by manual encoding  use
information out of the accounting systems
• Collects high quality data
• Provides a taxonomy for annual accounts  harmonize
the data format
• Reduces administrative burden  assure an exchange
with other administrations
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THE XBRL TAXONOMY– CURRENT STATE
1. Consultancy from the BNB – CBSO.
2. Creation of the « lu-fr-pfs-ci-2007-01-01 » taxonomy:
– According to luxembourgish accountancy standards
– Compliant spec 2.1 and FRTA 1.0
– Multilingual (french, english and german)
3. Translation of the balance sheets, income statements
(abreviated and complete) in the three languages into
XBRL standards achieved (complete table of accounts
in course of completion).
4. Cooperating on the final modifications on the table of
accounts to be in conformity with the XBRL standards.
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CONSTRAINTS
Legal framework under construction
• creation of an Accounting Standards Committee
(before Chrismas 2006)
• creation of a standardized chart of accounts
(prepared during spring 2006 and almost finalized)
• filing procedure fixing among others paper or
electronic formats, fixation of civil penalties for late
filing
• access to financial reports either for the public or for
administrative purposes (especially tax authorities)
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PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
• Set up an XBRL non profit organisation in Luxembourg
• Contact major stakeholders - especially accounting
software vendors
• Non standardized annual accounts from February 2007
on
• First XBRL draft Taxonomy on April/May 2007
• Structured data collection in 2009 and dissemination in
2010 or 2011
• Analysis and financial information
• Feed-back to reporting companies
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Thank you for your attention
Questions?
The CBSO – contact
STATEC – Central Balance Sheet Office
Centre Administratif Pierre Werner
13 rue Erasme
L-2013 Luxembourg
Tel.: +352 478 8462
patricia.gonzalez@statec.etat.lu
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