The Accounting & Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) implemented a new filing requirement for Singapore incorporated companies to file their financial statements (FS) in XBRL (or eXtensible Business Reporting Language) format with effect from 1 November 2007. XBRL is an open standard used in computers to present financial statements such that they can be retrieved from online records and transferred directly to users such as auditors, regulators, financial analysts for various purposes.

ACRA believes that the use of XBRL will provide more value-added financial information and enhance the regulatory environment with improved transparency and timely dissemination of relevant financial information. Before 1 November 2007, all financial statements were filed in PDF format.

What are your options?

Accountants of companies that are required to file financial statements now need to prepare the statements in XBRL so that the company’s corporate secretary can in turn file the statements in XBRL format with ACRA.

Directors of the companies are responsible of ensuring the correctness and accuracy of financial statements in XBRL format filed with ACRA. They are advised to check the information to be filed before authorizing any parties to submit the information on behalf of the company to ACRA.

Companies can choose to get their staff to prepare the financial statements in XBRL format using ACRA’s FS Manager tool. Alternatively, you can engage external service to assist in the preparation.

The advantage

Preparation of financial statements in XBRL requires some accounting knowledge and it is time-consuming. A company’s director will most often dedicate this task to a junior accounts personnel. The dilemma, however, is whether directors should spend extra time to check that: (1) the statements prepared in XBRL format and; (2) the XBRL filing, are both done correctly.

As such, outsourcing the preparation and filing will give directors the peace of mind in meeting the company’s compliance needs. This enable directors and business owners to focus on business-critical operations and core activities without having to worry about the processes behind this requirement.

What is needed?

Send me a copy of your audited financial statements so that I can turnaround within 5 working days.

If you need assistance in XBRL filing, please feel free to contact me at 9388 9616 or email at princess_3381@hotmail.com