What is ESEF?

The ESEF legislation contains several regulatory compliance requirements for how an Annual Financial Report (AFR) must be prepared and presented. To comply, companies must prepare AFRs using inline XBRL (iXBRL) for consolidated reporting and XHTML for solo reporting.

iXBRL and XHTML are document formats, the same as Microsoft Word’s DOCX format or Adobe’s PDF. XHTML is the format used to display websites and, since iXBRL is built on top of XHTML, both types of ESEF document can be viewed in any web browser. iXBRL also includes computer-readable information in the form of iXBRL tags that identify and define the meaning of the tagged numbers or text.

Typically, as some point in the production of a company’s annual report, the document will be converted into the required format (XHTML or iXBRL). Then, if required, iXBRL tags will be added in a process known as “tagging”. When tags are added to an ESEF document, they can be viewed in an iXBRL viewer or read by computers to enhance analysis and automated uses of the data in the reports.

ESEF also defines an XBRL taxonomy that describes which tags should be used in the report. The XBRL taxonomy is a dictionary of line items and breakdowns maintained by European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and is known as the “ESEF XBRL taxonomy”. It is based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy produced by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

What is UKSEF?

UKSEF is the UK’s variant of ESEF and is maintained by the Financial Research Council (FRC). It takes into consideration the specific needs of Companies House for statutory reporting and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for regulatory reporting. It provides a means by which UK-specific tags can be added alongside those defined by ESMA.

Currently, only a handful of additional tags are added, however, this arrangement allows for the future case where different reporting is required to meet UK requirements whilst remaining interoperable with the EU. It is expected that the first significant divergence will be the use of the EFRAG-defined sustainability standards in the EU and the ISSB-defined sustainability standards in the UK.

ESEF and UKSEF solutions

CoreFiling provide solutions for all those who need to efficiently and easily create, audit and collect ESEF or UKSEF reports:

• Filers minimise the time required for conversion and tagging of your ESEF and UKSEF reports in Seahorse.
• Auditors carry out assurance with fast and accurate automated checking and collaborative review tools in Beacon.
• Regulators quickly set up ESEF and UKSEF data collection portals, tuned to deliver their required processing.
• Standard setters efficiently create high quality digital data standards and taxonomies.

To ensure our customers are up-to-date, CoreFiling are actively involved in specifications, taxonomies, filing manuals and practical decision-making in the EU and UK. This coverage gives us a thorough understanding of the challenges people face when dealing with ESEF and UKSEF and we use this knowledge and experience to help our customers.

The holistic view is captured on the True North Data Platform (TNDP). This means that the same checks carried out by regulators and auditors are available for direct use by filers and through tagging services, minimising the number of loops required to complete the filing of a report.

Filers and Seahorse

Seahorse is SaaS-based software that enables individual companies and our tagging service partners to convert and tag ESEF and UKSEF reports. It is designed to allow simpler reports to be straightforwardly tagged and with the required flexibility to meet all technical requirements for more complex reports.

To use Seahorse, you upload your annual report from PDF, InDesign, Word or Excel and the conversion happens immediately. For AFRs that do not need to be tagged, this is the only step required. For tagging, Seahorse has a streamlined interface for identifying figures and text to be tagged and then identifying the correct tags to use.

Seahorse is provisioned through our partner network, several of which also provide full tagging services. Please contact us to find out more.

Latvia and Baltics

• Tagging service
• Reseller
• Audit service
  

Nordics

• Reseller

Auditors and Beacon

Beacon is the software of choice for auditors who need to provide assurance of ESEF and UKSEF reports. Upon upload of a client’s report package, Beacon validates the filing according to the filing rules of the target jurisdiction and reports all errors and warnings. Assurance related to tag selection and composition of extensions is enabled through direct viewing or an audit export which creates an Excel file split by topics for inspection.

Collaborative and multi-user review is enabled through discussions attached to the report, validations or individual tags. Results can be downloaded and shared with the client and, if a new version of the report is supplied, Beacon tracks each version and highlights any changes.

Beacon is supplied as a SaaS product and can be extended through additional automated checks and linking to workflow and other systems via our API. Please contact us to find out more.

Features

Our credentials

CoreFiling are an independent software company that has delivered iXBRL, XBRL and XML reporting solutions for more than 20 years. Major regulators, accounting firms and filers, including some of the largest companies in the world, rely on our software and services to help them achieve compliance in the easiest way possible. CoreFiling invented the iXBRL format and customers have used our software to produce hundreds of thousands of quality iXBRL documents to date. With our proven expertise and deep knowledge of the technology, we provide maximum confidence and peace of mind for any ESEF filer.

Useful links

The list of regulated markets where issuers will be required to publish in the ESEF can be found by searching for Regulated Market entities at this link.

As well as issuers publishing their own annual reports, they will be published by a national “Officially Appointed Mechanism”, the list of these can be found on the ESMA website.

An example of a fully tagged ESEF report can be found here.

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