30. Juli 2024

XBRL Extended Machine readability is moving further into focus due to the expansion of the ESG reporting obligation in Switzerland.

Bern, 26.06.2024: The Swiss Government is moving forward with the expansion of sustainability reporting: in line with the EU and going further than the previous Swiss Climate Protection Ordinance, Swiss companies that meet two of the following three criteria will be obliged to report in future: Now at least 250 employees compared to the previous 500 employees, total assets of CHF 25 million, sales of CHF 50 million - a step that many observers had expected. With regard to XBRL, even more managers in the Swiss IR and ESG units are likely to deal with the requirements of the machine-readable format in the future. Not by the fact that the proposed Federal Council regulation would affect around 3,500 companies instead of just 300, but also because virtually no one can avoid the EU's recently published ESRS XBRL taxonomy.

XBRL – Short code, big effect.

Anyone who talks to Sacha Kälin, our Mr. XBRL, quickly senses our expert's enthusiasm for machine readability. Perhaps also a touch of fascination, which, according to Sacha, lies in the combination of regulation and technology: “With XBRL, the technical and the technological are closely interwoven.” People responsible for reporting need to know which content is subject to publication on the basis of the CSRD, but at the same time they should also understand how XBRL works as a file format - with the intention that reports are technologically and machine-comparable.

The requirement for companies to publish machine-readable reports has been in place in the EU since 2020 in a correspondingly staggered manner. Initially for financial reporting. The CSRD Directive extends the requirements to more and more topics (ESG). With the Federal Council's latest proposal for stricter regulation, Switzerland is now also following suit for smaller companies, thereby further aligning itself with the EU criteria.

Fast learning curve in dealing with XBRL - in Switzerland from 0 to 100!

While companies in the EU have been grappling with the machine-readability of their financial and ESG reports for some time now, Swiss companies affected by the reporting obligation have only recently started to deal with this.

At the beginning of XBRL in financial reporting, many companies in the EU used external service providers to deal with the issue. The topic was simply outsourced. Sacha Kälin has been following developments outside Switzerland for several years now: “In the meantime, most companies have built up their own knowledge of XBRL and tagging. In some cases, XBRL teams have even been installed in a kind of in-house competence center. For companies in Switzerland that are now starting to deal with XBRL in the context of ESG, the learning curve from 0 to 100 is much steeper.”

Tagging plus – our integrated platform module.

Companies that simplify their entire reporting process through automation and digitalization have a clear advantage. This makes all the more sense as regulatory requirements are becoming increasingly complex - and lean IR and ESG teams have enough on their plate. Our two platform solutions ns.wow and ns.publish have integrated the tried-and-tested tagging plus module, the so-called built-in approach with a single source of truth for the data. Your advantage: you send your reports to the regulator with the corresponding machine-readable tags as an ESEF package or XHTML file at the same time as publishing the report in other formats. This has been tried and tested many times for financial reporting and will soon be just as convenient. ESRS and CSRD-compliant reporting could hardly be easier or more secure.

With years of experience in financial tagging, clients benefit from the expertise of our XBRL team. With leading experts such as Mr. XBRL on board, they have direct access to proven and cutting-edge knowledge. Together, we bring the best components together for you: First-class experts, effective modules and all relevant success factors for cleanly set up machine-readable reports. Typical mms: Combining the best in reporting.