Except for those that are explicitly excluded, all Singaporean corporations are required to submit financial statements to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore (ACRA) as part of the yearly filing requirements. Financial statements for both public and private businesses are submitted in XBRL format.
Companies limited by guarantee, international corporations, and their subsidiaries submit important financial data in XBRL format, and full sets of signed PDF copies of the financial statements are distributed to members or presented at annual general meetings. On the contrary, partnerships and sole proprietorships are not at all required to submit financial statements to ACRA.
Financial statements prepared in compliance with IFRS are submitted using the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) extensible markup language-based format. This format is used all over the world because it makes it easy to process enormous volumes of quantitative data and because it creates a structure for financial reporting that can be considered as being the standard.
Refer to XBRL filing Singapore for more information.
Filing in XBRL Format provides benefits such as:
- Faster, more accurate, and more dependable data handling;
- The capacity to generate reports automatically;
- Ability to compile and examine accounting data for huge data collections;
- Improved business information analysis;
- More effective and affordable regulatory processes, etc.
TIPS TO MANAGE XBRL REPORTING & FILING WITH ACRA
Prioritising XBRL
Considering everything “important” can only lead to overload. The financial reporting procedure and its deadlines cannot, however, be neglected. The applicant should prioritize XBRL filing; and deploy internal resources if possible, or if they don’t want to do so, they should think about employing an outside service provider to do this complicated and time-consuming work for them.
Outsourcing to the right experts
With modern technology breakthroughs and XBRL solutions available, error-free XBRL filing is only a few clicks away.
On the other hand, maintaining the supply chain is critical, but employing the appropriate specialists for XBRL filing is important. In order to meet all of ACRA’s filing requirements, business owners need to get the necessary expertise.
Delegate
One of the main issues with managers around the world is their inability to delegate. Delegating will help them stand out from the crowd.
Particularly when it comes to XBRL filing and reporting, micromanaging is time-consuming, mentally exhausting, and demoralizing. In the business world, there are certain duties that are better left in the hands of professionals. Try to assign this duty to professionals or outsourced XBRL service providers so that they can handle the complexities of ACRA filing and reporting as well as the XBRL taxonomy, which may leave the applicant confused.
Being aware of the changes made by ACRA
ACRA published a set of updated filing guidelines in May 2020, with an implementation date of January 1, 2021. The changes include:
Decommissioning of the BizFinx Preparation Tool
Companies have had access to a number of tools and other resources through the BizFinx portal since 2014, making it simpler for them to prepare and submit financial statements in the XBRL format. However, ACRA released the BizFinx multi-upload tool in May 2019 to allow businesses to simultaneously submit numerous XBRL files to the BizFinx server. After this change, businesses can validate and upload XBRL financial statements without using the BizFinx platform.
WAYS TO PREPARE AND MANAGE XBRL FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
The applicant can create your XBRL financial statements in one of three ways:
- Utilizing the BizFinx preparation tool, they can submit their yearly return through the BizFile+ site.
- They can prepare and submit the yearly return using accounting software; or
- To generate error-free, high-quality XBRL financial statements, they can outsource the entire process to a reputable service provider.
Reach out to us at Relin Consultants for further assistance with your XBRL reporting with ACRA.
