Dutch government and business agree to cooperate on introduction of XBRL from start of 2007

 

Netherlands also publishes its taxonomy for broad range of financial reporting

 

12 June 2006

 

 

The Dutch government and business organisations have agreed in detail on cooperation to introduce XBRL by the start of 2007 for a range of financial reporting in the Netherlands.

 

An accord was signed in a ceremony in The Hague on 9 June between four ministries, representing the government, the employers’ organisations and businesses involved in accounting, software supply and as intermediaries in financial reporting.

 

The agreement sets outs specific obligations on the government, which is leading a project to introduce XBRL in order to reduce the administrative burden on all parties involved in financial reporting.  These obligations include:

·                 The maintenance of the taxonomy, or classification scheme, which defines the terms used in XBRL financial reporting in The Netherlands.

·                 The creation and support of the infrastructure for reporting, including a network for exchanging data.

·                 Ensuring government systems are ready to handle XBRL data on a large scale from the beginning of 2007.

 

 

Text Box: Part of the signing ceremony.  Left to right:  Wim van Lemmen of Accountview software, Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner and Fried Frederix of Gibo Group, auditors.
Photo courtesy of Gibo Group

 

 

Businesses agreed to take steps to facilitate the production of data in XBRL.  Software suppliers agreed to incorporate XBRL support in their financial reporting products before the end of this year.  Accounting firms and other intermediaries agreed to take steps support businesses in producing XBRL, so that large scale filing in XBRL can take place from the start of 2007.

 

At the same time, the Government-led project group working on the Dutch taxonomy released its Version 1.0_2005 of the Dutch taxonomy – the first general publication of the taxonomy following a period of development and testing.

 

Officials said they hope that filing in XBRL would rapidly expand during 2007, with several hundred thousand companies using XBRL within a reasonably short period.

 

The system will support the filing of a range of business data to the appropriate authorities, including accounts, tax returns and statistical information.

 

Ministries involved in the signing ceremony were Justice, Finance, Government Reform and Economic Affairs.  Statistics Netherlands, responsible for official statistics, and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce were also among official bodies which signed the accord.

 

The Dutch XBRL project would “enable reduction of administrative burdens for businesses in the financial reporting chain by simplifying the exchange of financial reports with government bodies,” the agreement said.  “By using the open standard XBRL, it will be possible to collect, record and exchange financial reports more quickly, more efficiently and more easily, as well as to record data once only.”

 

More information on the Dutch project can be found on http://www.xbrl-ntp.nl/

 

An English version of the covenant is available at: 

http://www.xbrl.org/Announcements/Covenant-9June.pdf

A press release by the Dutch Taxonomy Project on the covenant is at:

http://www.xbrl.org/Announcements/Covenant-PR-9June.pdf

The list of parties which have already signed the covenant is at:

http://www.xbrl.org/Announcements/NL-signed-9June.pdf

The list of parties who are proposing to sign is at

http://www.xbrl.org/Announcements/NL-to-sign-9June.pdf

 

 

 

Announced by:

Peter Calvert

XBRL International

 

 

 

 

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