XBRL - General Information

XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is an online standard that uses the XML-based framework to present financial statements, such that financial information can be retrieved from online records of individual companies (if the information is prepared in XBRL format)  and transferred directly to auditors, regulators, financial analysts, and other users of financial reports.  XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web.

XBRL works by adding information about information, through the use of metadata or descriptive data (tags).  This allows computers to relate to or communicate with one another without human intervention

(a)Providing greater access to corporate financial data

End-users of financial information can request for specific items in the financial statements across a wide spectrum of companies, e.g. companies in similar industries, for analysis or benchmarking purposes. Such information may not be easily available currently for financial statements which are filed in Portable Document Format (PDF) or hardcopies. There is also less effort to be expended in collating and manual re-keying of data. The potential users to benefit from XBRL includes shareholders, investors, members of the public, banks and institutional lenders, stock brokers, credit bureau, companies themselves, etc;

(b)Facilitating one-stop filing

With statements prepared under one standard format, in the long run it would be possible for a one-stop agency to be established where companies need only file one set of financial statements with that agency, e.g. ACRA, to fulfill their statutory financial reporting obligations. The same set of financial statements filed can be transferred to other regulatory agencies with similar filing requirements, e.g. IRAS; and

(c)Strengthening regulatory vigilance

With less effort expended in sieving through various reporting formats, collating and manual re-keying of data, regulators can devote more time on analysing data and performing their regulatory vigilance functions. Experiences in other countries show that XBRL has been instrumental in improving the regulators surveillance and vigilance functions and ACRA is, likewise , also tapping on XBRL to improve efficiencies and effectiveness of its surveillance and vigilance functions.

XBRL is developed by a global consortium called XBRL.org, which comprises approximately 450 leading companies, associations, and agencies involved in providing or using business information.

Members of the global consortium comprise professional services and consulting companies, financial services and information providers, software and other technology providers, government and not-for-profit organisations, and accounting and trade organisations.  These include the Big Four accounting firms, International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), UK Companies House, EDGAR Online, US FDIC, Korea Stock Exchange, Microsoft, Moody’s Investor Service, Morgan Stanley, New Zealand Stock Exchange, Reuters, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Stock Exchange of Thailand, Tokyo Stock Exchange, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, CPA Australia etc.  [Source: XBRL.org]

To date, XBRL has been adopted by major industry players, such as Dresdner Bank (to enhance its credit monitoring process), Bank of America, Microsoft (to streamline its data dissemination to various stakeholders), Morgan Stanley and Reuters.

XBRL has also been adopted by some regulators in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden , China, US and UK for their regulatory filings. These include the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), UK Inland Revenue Authority, the Stock Exchanges of Tokyo, Shenzhen, South Korea, UK Companies House and the Swedish Companies Registration Office. In April 2007, the National Bank of Belgium which is responsible for collecting financial statements from Belgian companies, switched to accepting accounts filed in XBRL.

For future announcements and updates on FS Manager and ACRA's implementation of XBRL, please visit our Homepage at http://www.acra.gov.sg.

You may sign up for ACRA News Online to get the latest news updates. To sign up, please fill up the online form at http://appiqs.acra.gov.sg/ops/reg/reg02.asp.

Further information on XBRL, including latest updates and international developments can be accessed at:http://www.xbrl.org

Frequently asked questions on XBRL can be found in our interactive web service, ASK ACRA at http://www.acra.gov.sg/askacra.

You can also access our Interactive Voice Response System for information on XBRL by calling our hotline number at (65) 6248 6028 and choose option 1.

Companies can use the FS Manager. FS Manager is a free online tool provided by ACRA as part of BizFile to help companies prepare and manage financial statements in XBRL format. Using FS Manager, company filers or relevant users (e.g. preparers of financial statements) can submit companies financials via completing a series of web-based forms. The web-based forms are designed in accordance with ACRA's taxonomy requirements.

FS Manager can be accessed through BizFile Homepage with effect from 1 May 2007.

To use FS Manager, the following are required:

On Windows Platform

Operating System: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 and above
Web Browser: Internet Explorer 5.5 SP 2 and above (Javascript must be enabled) or Firefox 1.5.0.x and above (Javascript must be enabled)

On Mac Platform

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.2.x and above
Web Browser: Firefox 1.5.0.x and above (Javascript must be enabled