XBRL FILING: Standard Way of Recording Financial Information

Extensible Business Reporting Language, popularly known as XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data, which is revolutionizing business reporting around the world. It is a manner of submission of financial statement with the authorities.

All Companies incorporated in India are required to file their financial statements with the Registrar of Companies or other authorities, these filings are done by submitting details and copy of balance sheet and profit and loss statement. Such filing can also be completed through XBRL mode whereby financial details of Company are submitted in more exhaustive form with the regulators.

As of now four majors regulatory authorities has adopted XBRL Filing as a manner of reporting:

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
• Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA XBRL)
• Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
• Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA)

Advantages of XBRL Filing

1. XBRL Reporting offer detailed analysis on financial reporting companies.

2. XBRL filing provides more accuracy and reliability.

3. It can be adjusted to meet customised business requirement at individual organisational level.

4. Save cost and improve efficiency in handling business and financial Information.

5. It offers comparability and transparency.

6. XBRL benefits comparability by helping to identify data, which is genuinely alike, and distinguishing information, which is not comparable.

Who developed XBRL?

As per Ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), circular 09/11 of dated March 31, 2011, Ministry has stated in its FAQ that XBRL is an open, royalty free software specification developed through a process of collaboration between accountants and technologists from all over the world.

XBRL is and will remain an open specification based on XML that is being incorporated into many accounting and analytical software tools and applications.

XBRL filing by Corporates

With an aim to enhance Ministry ‘s capability in policy formulation and regulatory function for overall benefit of corporate, investors and regulators, MCA has introduced XBRL in phase wise manner from financial year 2011-12 onwards. Training programme, seminars were organised by MCA in association with professional institutes to make corporates aware of filing manner in XBRL.

Section 137 of Companies Act, 2013 and the Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015 states the provision for applicability and manner of filing XBRL by Companies.

Definition

As per Rule 2(1) (d) of 3 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015 XBRL means:

“Extensible Business Reporting Language” (XBRL), means a standardised language for communication in electronic form to express report or file financial information by the companies under the Act.”

Applicability

As per Rule 3 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015, below given Companies are required to file their financial statement in XBRL mode:

Other Important Provisions for XBRL Filing requirement

1. As per rule 1 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015, Companies which are required to prepare their financial statements as per IND AS they are required to take care of below given points:

• Companies preparing their financial statements under the Companies (Accounting Standards) Rules, 2006: File the statements using the Taxonomy provided in Annexure-II of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015

• Companies preparing their financial statements under Companies (Indian Accounting Standards) Rules, 2015: File the statements using the Taxonomy provided in Annexure-IIA of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015

“Taxonomy” means in XBRL, an electronic dictionary for reporting the business data as approved by the Central Government in respect of any documents or forms indicated in these rules.

2. As per rule 2 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015, Companies which have filed their financial statements in XBRL mode once are required to file XBRL every year even if they do not fall into given categories.

Companies which are exempted from filing XBRL

As per proviso of rule 1 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015, below given companies are exempted to file their financial statement in XBRL mode:

• Non-banking financial companies,
• Housing finance companies and
• Companies engaged in the business of Banking and Insurance sector.

Cost Audit and XBRL

As per rule 4 of Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015, Companies which are required to file Cost Audit report under section 148 of the Act, are required to file such report through XBRL in taxonomy given in Annexure III of the Companies (Filing of Documents and Forms in XBRL) Rules, 2015 in e-Form CRA-4 specified under the Companies (Cost Records and Audit) Rules, 2014.

How do companies create statements in XBRL?

As per MCA FAQ, there are a number of ways to create financial statements in XBRL:

• XBRL-aware accounting software products are becoming available which will support the export of data in XBRL form. These tools allow users to map charts of accounts and other structures to XBRL tags.

• Statements can be mapped into XBRL using XBRL software tools designed for this purpose

• Data from accounting databases can be extracted in XBRL format. It is not strictly necessary for an accounting software vendor to use XBRL;

• Third party products can achieve the transformation of the data to XBRL.

• Applications can transform data in particular formats into XBRL. The route which an individual company may take will depend on its requirements and the accounting software and systems it currently uses, among other factors.

What are the XBRL Forms required to be filed by Companies?

AOC 4 XBRL	Form for filing XBRL document in respect of financial statement and other documents with the Registrar
Form I XBRL	Form for filing XBRL document in respect of cost audit report and other documents with the Central Government
Form A XBRL	Form for filing XBRL document in respect of compliance report and other documents with the Central Government