پیش به سوی پذیرش جهانی XBRL با استفاده از استانداردهای بین المللی گزارش گری مالی

XBRL is a language based on XML for the electronic communication of business information. It is designed to improve the exchange, aggregation and analysis of corporate data requiring disclosure, through a unique tagging structure that provides interoperability. But, the proliferation of a multitude of XBRL taxonomies, based on different accounting principles, can risk the objectives of standardization, comparability and re-usability of the information that is sought with XBRL. It is therefore essential to develop global accounting standards as a unique foundation on which the XBRL taxonomies can be established, so that it becomes possible to compare the financial information originating from various countries. Along these lines, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS-GP) taxonomy was created to establish a common ground for international firms and create a platform that would enhance the benefits of XBRL. This paper examines whether the IFRS-GP taxonomy, at its current state, adequately covers European companies' dissemination practices and strengthens the benefits of XBRL. Our results provide implications for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the IFRS-GP taxonomy and shed light on directions that may lead to the improvement of this taxonomy.

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a commercial branded language, based on XML, devised with the aim of establishing standardized protocols for the transmission of accounting information through the Internet. Currently, it is being promoted by the consortium XBRL International, which groups around 450 companies and organizations committed to extending the use of a standard taxonomy globally. XML is a metalanguage; in other words, it represents metadata that are essentially data about other data. These metadata play a fundamental role in facilitating the search for information on the Internet. On this latter point, Alimohammadi (2003) notes that the Internet lacks the necessary structure to allow users to rapidly find the information that they need, and metadata provide a possible solution for better organizing and retrieving digital information. Accordingly, XBRL as an adaptation of XML to the business world should allow financial information to be managed more effectively and efficiently. The principal components of XBRL are the items and the taxonomies. An item is a fact that makes reference to the entity that issues information by means of XBRL and a taxonomy is a set of elements that allows several different items of information to be represented in an XBRL document. These items can be associated with the auditing, elements of the financial statements themselves, and accounting policies. Each of these groups is included in a different taxonomy; some of them are universal in scope, while others are specific to nations or regions and allow the requirements of the accounting regulations in each environment to be represented; that is, they are in accordance with different sets of generally accepted accounting principles.1 At first sight, these adaptations may seem an advantage, but in reality they represent an impediment for achieving the full, comprehensive expansion and application of the standard. Therefore, if the bases on which the XBRL taxonomies rest are different, users will not be able to compare the financial information corresponding to companies from several different countries. A possible solution to this problem is the development of a toolset capable of translating the financial statements prepared under a set of accounting principles into another one. Along these lines, the IASC Foundation XBRL team is developing theories and mechanisms to compare taxonomies and to signal equivalent concepts. However, this toolset is still under development (Eccles et al., 2001 and Jensen and Xiao, 2001). Unless a different approach is adopted, the objectives of standardization, comparability and re-usability of information that XBRL is intended to achieve will be put at risk. It is essential to develop a set of accounting principles and standards of universal character that would make possible the comparison of the financial information originating from many different countries. To date, the attempts at harmonization with the widest scope have been made from two perspectives: that of the European Union, orientated towards reducing the differences between the countries of this grouping, and that of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), focused more on international standardization. Combining the two perspectives, the European Union, through Ruling (CE) 1606/2002, of 19 July 2002, requires all the stock market quoted companies within its jurisdiction to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) drafted by the IASB, from the year 2005. Thus, the European Commission has abandoned the idea of issuing accounting standards, and has decided instead to support those issued by the IASB. 2 Nevertheless, it reserves control over the application of the IFRS in the EU context by means of the mechanism of endorsement or acceptance, relying for this on the advice provided by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) ( Gonzalo, 2003 and Giner, 2003). Therefore, compliance with the IFRS, which represent solutions reached by world-wide consensus, is obligatory for all the most important groups of companies. In addition, it can be discovered from these standards where gaps currently exist, and what route should be taken in the future, thanks to their continuous evolution. But it is not only the European Union that has shown its support for the standards issued by the IASB; many other countries have decided to adopt them. The reception and uptake has been so strong that even the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) itself, the issuing body of the generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (US GAAP) has recognized the need to bring their principles into convergence with IFRS, and is developing, jointly with the IASB, a Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting (IASB, 2006). Furthermore, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released its roadmap for U.S. acceptance of IFRS. Their proposal suggests that U.S. public companies could be required to accept and implement IFRS by 2014.3 It appears that IFRS, which to date is the best approach to those much wished-for Universal Financial Reporting Standards, has become fundamental for achieving accounting harmonization on the world scale, and thus for being able to take maximum advantage of the potentialities of XBRL. If all companies were to utilize the same standard that, in turn, was based on the same rules or principles, the comparability of information would be possible at all levels. Along these lines, the IFRS-GP Taxonomy (International Financial Reporting Standards, General Purpose Financial Reporting for Profit-Oriented Entities, Incorporating Additional Requirements for Banks and Similar Financial Institutions) is itself based on IFRS. For this reason, this taxonomy is of great importance in that it serves both to establish a common ground for international firms and to create a platform for the utilization of XBRL. However, despite the relevance of this issue, there is an absence of research addressing whether the IFRS-GP Taxonomy adequately covers European companies' reporting practices. This is the objective of this study, and to achieve it, we will analyze the degree of fit between the IFRS-GP taxonomy and the information provided by the European companies that draw up their financial statements using IFRS. Therefore, should the degree of fit between the taxonomy and the financial information reported by companies be perfectly matched, it would be possible to conclude that the IFRS-GP taxonomy is adequate for reflecting the reporting practices of the companies to which it is directed. In the contrary case, the taxonomy will not be fulfilling its purpose and it will be necessary to study the origin of this mis-fit and try to determine the factors that have caused this, so that they may later be corrected. Therefore, with this paper it is intended to contribute to the development of a taxonomy that, because it is based on IFRS, becomes essential both for bringing about the widely desired homogenization of financial information, and for definitively driving the application and expansion of the XBRL standard.

XBRL is a language based on XML for the electronic communication of business information. It is designed to improve the exchange, aggregation and analysis of corporate data requiring disclosure, through a unique tagging structure that provides interoperability. Nowadays, there are many different XBRL taxonomies, based on different national accounting regulations. At first sight, these adaptations may seem an advantage but, actually, they represent an impediment for achieving the full, comprehensive expansion and application of the standard. If the bases on which the XBRL taxonomies rest are different, users will not be able to compare the financial information corresponding to companies from different countries. A possible solution to this problem is the development of a toolset capable of translating the financial statements prepared under a set of accounting principles into another one. Along these lines, the IASC Foundation XBRL team is developing theories and mechanisms to compare taxonomies and to signal equivalent concepts. However, this toolset has not been developed yet. Therefore, in order to fully exploit the capabilities of XBRL, it seems essential to create a common set of global accounting standards with the objective of facilitating the comparison of firms from different countries (Eccles et al., 2001). Only under the presence of such standards could the efficiency of XBRL be brought to exceed the desired levels. To these ends, the IFRS-GP Taxonomy is itself based on IFRS. This taxonomy is of great importance as it serves both to establish a common ground for international firms and to create a platform for the utilization of XBRL. This is the basis for focusing on the IFRS-GP taxonomy in this study; our objective was to determine whether it adequately covers the disclosure practices of European companies. To achieve this objective, the degree of fit between the IFRS-GP Taxonomy and the accounting statements prepared according to IFRS was analyzed, and it was demonstrated that, effectively, a majority of the concepts included by companies in their reported financial information appear to be covered by this particular taxonomy. However, there are a plethora of deviations identified and the fit is clearly not perfect. Analysis of the mis-fits for the underlying causes found that, for both the banking and insurance sectors, the degree of mis-fit is significantly greater than for the other sectors. This appears to result from these two sectors having some very specific characteristics leading to the inclusion in their financial statements of accounting concepts different from those found in the accounts of most industrial and commercial companies. Hence, these findings justify the extension to the banking and financial sector that is reflected in the latest versions of this taxonomy. At the same time, the study identifies the need to consider similar extensions of the taxonomy for insurance companies. Additional tests of research questions revealed that the section of the 2004 version of the taxonomy dedicated to the Statement of Changes in Equity presents a greater degree of mis-fit than those corresponding to the other three financial statements. Considering in greater depth the elements responsible for this mis-fit, and analyzing the last available version of the taxonomy, it was confirmed that these deficiencies detected were largely resolved, although there are still some gaps that appear to warrant additional consideration. To reach the stage where the IFRS-GP taxonomy offers full utility and covers all the financial reporting practices of organizations, it is important to overcome the previously indicated deficiencies. If this is not done, the taxonomy may lose some of its utility and XBRL as a whole could lose momentum in its widespread adoption. It must be borne in mind that this analysis was conducted on companies that, at the time of the analysis, had prepared their latest financial statements according to IFRS. For this reason, it is necessary to recognize the need for future similar reviews of the IFRS-GP taxonomy as it evolves over time in order to examine the taxonomies coverage of new reporting practices that will invariably exist as more and more companies utilize IFRS in preparing their financial statements. Similarly, given the continuous evolution of the regulations emanating from the IASB, it will also be essential to examine whether newly issued regulations or standards, or modification of those already existing, are appropriately incorporated into the IFRS-GP taxonomy. As a final conclusion, a future scenario is proposed in which the reviews of the IFRS-GP taxonomy need to be continuous, or at least frequent, to be able to detect possible mis-fits between the taxonomy and the reporting practices of the companies that prepare their financial statements based on IFRS. Such reviews will be critical to supporting future modifications designed to improve the degree of fit and, in consequence, to enhance the IFRS-GP taxonomy's utility. It should be noted, however, that the taxonomy has still not been applied by companies in the actual preparation of accounts. When the time arrives that this application is generalized and continuous in time, more relevant and realistic information will become available to assess the taxonomy's utility in terms of how well it meets the disclosure needs of companies.