We are pleased to announce that we will be running a series of 2 day practical course in iXBRL beginning next month.  The course which gives participants the chance to tag Word and Excel documents in a classroom setting can help get you ready to work with iXBRL when it is mandated by HMRC next year.  For more details drop an email to supreet.bains@arkksolutions.com  The first class held at our Throgmorton Street offices in the City on Aug 24/25th is nearly fully booked (2 places left at time of writing), with another course planned for early September.  

Great day today at the HMRC's iXBRL exhibition at Stamford Bridge.  Over 20 vendors including us showed off their iXBRL solutions, and some showed off some iXBRL concepts ;-).  Really encouraging that our iXBRL Adapter for Word and Excel is the only product in the market that "Adds In" to Microsoft Office.  Other conversion softwares export the Word or Excel docs into a web based application before tagging which reduces the reusability of the document for other uses. 
Like to give a mention to Ben at MashIQ, the only vendor there not pushing a tagging solution, and by his own admission that probably explained the lack of traffic to his pitch.  We on the other hand think that he's captured a vision of what happens next after the April 2011 deadline and look forward to seeing his products that allow iXBRL to be sliced and diced and reported on, in more detail.
Evereyone seemed to agree that the event was a success (estimated 500-600 people through the door?) and looking forward to the future events coming up in Birmingham and Glasgow later this year.  Well done HMRC, that was certainly the best attended and most ineractive show of it's type I've been to.  

We'd love to hear from you if you are an IT professional with a background in financial systems.  We need you to work with our clients on their iXBRL projects.  Drop us a line on through the Contacts page.

HMRC have granted recognition to Arkk Solutions after the iXBRL Adapter for Microsoft Office product successfully produced consistent HMRC valid output.  Recognition for the Adapter comes hot on the heels of HMRC recognition for our cloud based iXBRL web service.  

Our partner, Sapphire Systems today held the first of 3 sessions to talk to their SAP Business One users about the iXBRL for SAP B1 solution which is powered by the Arkk iXBRL engine.  A brief show of hands at the start of the session was revealing.  Only 1 member of the audience of 50 had heard of iXBRL and there was concerned faces that the deadline seemed to be so close.  Sapphire are hosting events for their  SAP B1 and their Sun Systems users in the next few weeks.  Full details can be found at http://www.sapphiresystems.com/training_events/customer.htm

After gaining HMRC Recognition for the filing of Accounts in iXBRL, TaxCalc wasted no time turning on the live service last Friday.  The queue to send the first live transactions through resembled the first day of the January Sales as users bought credits to be the first to submit Accounts in the new format 10 months before the compliance deadline.  The cloud based service permits accountants to buy a pre tagged template starting at £5 which once connected to the Arkk web service instantly delivers an iXBRL document.  For more info check out www.taxcalc.com/ixbrl

Had great meeting with Big 4 firm yesterday who shared some interesting stats.

Based on a survey of 150 FTSE Tax Directors
-67% of Accounts are prepared in Word or Excel
-44% of the businesses surveyed will seek advice directly from their Tax Advisor how to proceed with iXBRL

And most interestingly...

-4% have chosen an iXBRL solution.

This is one of the most entertaining explanations of any IT related topic I've seen in a while and transcends the language barrier.  Useful for most UK clients too!

http://www.hp.jicpa.or.jp/english/xbrl/index.html?width=720&height=680

Does anybody care about the ability to add extra formatting in the iXBRL documents any more or is it all about compliance now?  In mid-2009, the appearance of iXBRL to include logos, colours and special fonts to create the same look and feel of the printed "glossy" accounts version was rated as "very important" by Directors of HMRC.  In fact one year on, the appearance of the document is still important (the inline presentation is of course essential), but the demand for logos and graphics has all but disappeared.  One client was happy to see the graphs appear in the Notes to the Accounts successfully appear in the iXBRL output but the iXBRL document has a long way to go before it takes the place of the glossy.  Designers and publishers, your jobs look to be safe for now.

Are you a charity that wants to know more about iXBRL and integration of your systems?  Come along and see us at the Annual CFDG conference where we'll be doing a lunchtime workshop.    http://www.cfdg.org.uk/cfdg/conf2010home.asp