XBRL Developments in Spain

Written by Javi Mora Gonzálbez     Posted on April 22, 2010

Javi Mora Gonzálbez is Manager at XBRL Spain.

XBRL momentum continues in Spain, as we can see from these recent developments:

Business Register: Spanish GAAP 2007
As announced at the recent 5th XBRL Spain Conference, Spanish business registers have more than 600,000 annual financial statements in XBRL format, which is approximately 70% of the total submitted, as required by the order JUS/206/2009. At the end of 2009, culminating the efforts begun several years ago, the Mercantile Registers made XBRL-based annual financial statements available to users and the public on the website of registrars. These documents and the annual financial statements can be downloaded in PDF format. This is the result of the combined effort of the Ministry of Justice, the creator of the General Accounting Plan 2007, and the Ministry of Economy, in charge of the annual financial statements through the Mercantile Registers (Companies House). The taxonomy PGC2007 is available online.

XBRL for Reporting Data of General Identification (DGI) from Economic Agents
The DGI taxonomy was created by a working group comprising the leading Spanish supervisors, disseminators of information, and a number of the major Spanish technology companies. Its purpose is to report non-financial business information identifying entities using a varied range of information, as well as to report documentation information on the XBRL report itself, such as who wrote the document. Its broad scope, modularity, and bilingual labels, as well as its acknowledgement by XBRL International, allows its use in other European or Latin American countries. The DGI taxonomy has been extended by the GAAP 2007 taxonomy; the DGI v2.3.2 taxonomy has been acknowledged by XBRL International, and approved by XBRL Spain. More information is available at XBRL Spain.

XBRL for Central Balance Sheet Data Office
One of the missions of the Bank of Spain is to collect, process, and store the financial information of nonfinancial companies in Spain, with the objective of increasing knowledge of each Spanish sub-industry. A GAAP 2007 XBRL extension is used to model an annual questionnaire, according both to the normal and abstracted formats. Using this XBRL Annual Questionnaire, it is possible to collect, on a voluntary basis, information about the entity's annual balance sheet, income statement, features, activities, and other data, including a complete identification with the DGI taxonomy. The taxonomy ES-BE-CB v4.0 is available online.
 
XBRL for Municipalities and Local Governments -- LENLOC and CONTALOC
In Spain, more than 17,000 reports from approximately 8,000 local governments and subsidiaries can report budget information to the Central Administration using the XBRL-LENLOC Taxonomy. In 2006, only 5% of municipalities used this procedure; the percentage increased to 25% in 2007, and 49% in 2008. The LENLOC Taxonomy will soon evolve into a new taxonomy, CONTALOC, covering most of the main local financial statements. More information can be found online.   

XBRL at the Securities Commission
In July 2005, the Spanish securities regulator CNMV (Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores) made reporting in XBRL mandatory. Since that date, the CNMV has received and made available at its website more than 23,000 XBRL reports submitted by 441 entities (listed companies and mutual fund managers). More information can be found at the CNMV site.

XBRL in Banking Supervision
More than 2,743 entities are filing yearly 109,554 reports in XBRL format to the Bank of Spain. The Bank of Spain gathers information from Spanish financial institutions as part of its role in overseeing the country's banking system, collecting statistics and reporting data for all companies to the European Central Bank. The introduction of XBRL for this reporting has enabled automatic data validation, better quality data, and reduced manual effort. The Bank of Spain is now pushing ahead with plans for the expanded use of XBRL, such as the use of formulas in the new taxonomies: Solvency Information (COREP), Financial Statements (FINREP), Mutual Guarantee, and Exchange Offices & Appraisal companies. More information is available at the Bank of Spain site.

XBRL for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
This concept emerged in the official discourse of the EU in 2000. It represents an integrated approach for external reporting on economic, social, and environmental issues, among others. CSR can be seen as a competitive advantage in 21st century business environments, such as for the growing use of green stock market indexes.

CSR is expressed in different formats (presentations, PDF, MS Excel spreadsheets, video, and so forth) which lack usability for automated processing. Much work is needed to process and audit CSR information in an efficient manner As a result, CSR lacks a certain degree of clarity, is too industry-specific, and the format in which it is based is not suitable for making comparisons. To address this challenge, the Spanish Association of Accounting and Management’s XBRL taxonomy offers a two-pronged solution: an efficient digital format and a semantic, internationally valid consensus that addresses more than 20 quality standards in the environmental, financial, social, human rights, and labor arenas. This taxonomy has been recently acknowledged by XBRL International; we are now starting the international implementation stage, where feedback will be crucial. More information about the XBRL-RSC report repository is available online.