The new XBRL Taxonomy for 2018 financial statements

Bilancio e reddito d'impresa n. 1/2019

XBRL Italia released the updated Taxonomy PCI-2018-11-04 to be used to prepare financial statements, including consolidated ones, closed starting from 31 December 2018; this version will substitute the previous one. The new Taxonomy will not apply to IAS adopters. The novelties introduced concern the Notes to the financial statements drawn up both in the ordinary form and in the abridged form, as well as the section “Micro financial statements, additional information”. No changes were introduced to the quantitative schemes of either the financial statements for the FY, or to the consolidated financial statements.

The XBRL format

The adoption of the XBRL format was promoted in various Countries in order to facilitate relationships between businesses and Public Administrations and improve the information flows between businesses and banks, as well as the financial market as a whole. This standard format was developed by XBRL International, a not for profit consortium (composed by private and institutional entities) aiming to promote the implementation, use and development of the format. In 2006, the Associazione XBRL Italia was formed to encourage the standardisation and modernisation of business information, also through the development of taxonomies.

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a language derived from the XML technology (eXtensible Markup Language) used to report, analyse and file business and financial information. This format allows to file financial statements with the companies’ register in a processable format; data contained in financial statements are immediately accessible and can be further processed, also through automated systems.

Structure of XBRL documents

An XBRL document consists of two separate components:

• the XBRL Taxonomy, defining the structure of the document and describing the items composing the document itself;
• the XBRL Instance, containing the business facts referred to the company and FYs, according to the Taxonomy scheme defined and in force when the document is formed.

Filing and PCI-2018-11-04 Taxonomy

On 6 November 2018, the Italian XBRL Association published on its website the new  PCI-2018-11-04 Taxonomy, replacing the previous one (PCI-2018-07-06 Taxonomy) and to be applied to Financial Statements closed on 31 December 2018.

The main news introduced by the new Taxonomy mainly concern the Notes to the accounts of companies drawing up their financial statements in the ordinary or abridged form, as well as minor corrections for companies adopting the financial statements scheme provided for micro-enterprises.

The changes introduces by the Taxonomy can be summarised as follows:

• changes in the introduction to the Notes, except for micro-enterprises
• changes in the “other information” section of the Notes to include information required for cooperatives, start-ups and innovative SMEs
• introduction in the “other information” section of the Notes of a paragraph dedicated to information on public subsides ex art. 1, para. 125 of Law n. 124 dated 4 August 2017.

For further information, please contact Alessandro Bartolini and Monica Martini.