As a result of the amended Transparency Directive in 2013, companies listed on EU regulated markets are obliged to prepare their annual financial reports in a European Single Electronic Format, known as ESEF (European Single Electronic Format).
Therefore, all annual financial reports shall be prepared in XHTML format and when the reports contain IFRS consolidated financial statements, they’ll be labelled with XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language).
The EU Directive prescribes the following timeline:
| Primary accounts + mandatory markings |
Consolidated IFRS accounts Mandatory from 2020 |
| Blocking notes | Mandatory from 2022 |
| Detailed tagging of notes | Voluntary |
How PwC can help with ESEF – iXBRL reporting
Our accounting specialists can advise you on the following activities:
- Develop a blueprint document containing the appropriate mapping of your primary IFRS consolidated accounts, in line with the ESEF taxonomy.
- Assist you throughout the entire ESEF implementation process. This may include advice on whether to acquire a new system, adopt a bolt-on solution or outsource this exercise to a third party.
- Support in your vendor selection process, organise training courses and workshops and support you with tagging (especially for judgemental areas like ‘anchoring’) or with developing the appropriate (industry-specific) extensions.
- Take over the full ESEF requirement from you and manage the tagging process on your behalf, allowing you to meet the requirements on a yearly basis without having to expand or revise your current accounting processes.
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