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.  

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

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.

After an appointment with a leading banking group this week, it was refreshing to hear them show the insight into what could be done with the iXBRL document other than send it to HMRC.  Immediately they have plans to reuse the document and post it on their website for their analysts to review.  Because they have over 100 reporting entities in the UK alone, the opportunity to have a common format (they follow our template driven principles) will start to payback from the first year.
Other possible uses that they see for iXBRL in the future included consolidating the information in a central db, this is even more of a incentive to global companies.  iXBRL in the UK isn't a barrier for them to merge their information with their global reporting entities who use XBRL.  XBRL lurks within the iXBRL document and now you can compare your figures from all your global entities with a bit of forethought and planning.

Daniel Roberts in his blogagrees, "One of the benefits of XBRL is the ability to directly consume the information into computer systems to avoid manual re-keying. This is particularly important if a company wants the analyst community to either cover the company, or at a minimum to include the company as a comparator to a covered company. Any need to re-key information would impose time and error costs on analysts, and will ‘de-select’ that company from the list of comparators, if it is possible to simply import the information provided by another company in the same industry segment"  Read the rest of Dan's blog at http://xbrlblog.com/ixbrl-uk-companies-have-a-great-opportunity.html

Arkk is working with the CFDG (Charity Finance Director’s Group) to develop a range of cost-effective options for charities of all sizes.  Despite the best efforts of HMRC to encourage users to use the free gateway to submit iXBRL Accounts, the simplicity of the information that can be entered means that for charities of a certain size and complexity, this will not be a realistic option.

The extension to the UK GAAP taxonomy to cover charities is still in draft form, indeed we have a preview copy (not for circulation!), and the signs are that it will be published in May or June of this year.  Initial reaction to the proposed extension suggests that the challenge will be not what to put in it, but at what point to stop!  It is understood that the immediate impact of this Taxonomy will be on corporate charities required to file a CT Return with HMRC.

We participated in a working on-line filing group earlier this week in London and the next one will be in mid-May at the CFDG’s annual meeting when we will, in conjunction with HMRC, run a series of breakout workshops for delegates with the aim of increasing awareness and demystifying the topic of iXBRL.  Also present at this week’s workshop were senior figures from CIAEW and HMRC along with FD’s from many of the major charities.

If you’re an FD of a charity and would like to keep up to date with the group’s latest developments please contact  megan.mcinally@cfdg.org.uk, you can also get the latest from us on this topic and others by following us on Twitter @ixbrl

Last night, 2 of our Directors presented to an audience of 40+ tax professionals as guests of Lexis Nexis.  As iXBRL was the topic of this month's meeting, the first presentation of the evening was by Mark Holden and Stephen Banyard from HRMC where they gave the audience an overview of iXBRL, many of whom were hearing it for the first time.  Interesting speaking to Mark before hand that he feels that the message is getting through now, and his answers to the usual questions about the suspicion and cost of this initiative have taken on more credibility as a result of being in the field with early adopters. 
Some concerns which they are trying to head off include the acceptance within companies that this is a team effort for tax, accountants and IT departments together.   Another benefit that has emerged is a greater communication in companies that have multiple subsidiaries, the point being that they have to now talk to each other, or at least acknowledging that each other exist.

Questions from the audience were plenty and the theme that made the biggest impression was the need for accountants to make judgements about the tags that they use.  The best example of this came from a representitive of E&Y who recall the story from the SEC filings in the US where Microsoft mixed up contexts to post in XBRL values in millions instead of billions of $$$!  Joking apart, we know that the taxonomy is in plain English but there is still a point where a judgement call has to be made.  For on line iXBRL solutions that recommend the closest tag to the text and "semi-automate" the tagging, this doesn't help at all, instead it was deemed by the audience to proliferate the problem.  With the exception of our SME template offerings, we also found that the discussions that FTSE 350 companies have about which tag to choose can't be automated and that the up front analysis process is a crucial part of the implementation.

However those that are wondering how HMRC will validate whther the "correct" tags have been used can console themselves when, last night they admitted that for first time in their online history, they are "prepared to accept an imperfect return!"

Meeting report can be found at http://taxpg.org.uk/2010/03/19/report-of-the-march-meeting/#more-19