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ESEF: A New Requirement for Issuers of Securities in the European Union

New Format of Annual Reports

ESEF or the European Single Electronic Format is a new requirement concerning the form in which the annual financial reports of companies listed on stock markets in Europe must be prepared.

The requirement applies to all Issuers from the European Union whose securities have been admitted for trading on a regulated market within the EU. In Poland, for example, this applies to companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. 

The Comarch ESEF application is a tool for generating financial reports which comply with the latest requirements

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What Does Reporting in ESEF Require?

  1. All annual financial reports compiled by issuers must be prepared and published in XHTML format — which makes it possible to read each report type with any standard web browser.
  2. Consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) are marked up/ tagged using XBRL markup language:
  • The proper display of the XBRL statements in a web browser is possible with the Inline XBRL standard specification.
  • Taxonomy, i.e. a dictionary for tagging data in the statements in the XBRL standard, is based on the IFRS
  • From January 1, 2020, the basic elements of the financial report (all elements except additional information)  are tagged in detail. From January 2022, additional information tagging will apply.

ESEF Reporting types

Benefits of Reporting in ESEF

The introduction of the European Single Electronic Format gives a number of multidimensional benefits that are mainly based on increasing the comparability and usability of financial information
For listed companies
The most important benefits are associated with a reduction in the number of errors in reported data, and in the possibility of analyzing financial data of other companies in order to use them for internal purposes.
For investors
This group has gained access to structured information — i.e. the ability to process the most important financial information quickly and comprehensively. This is crucial for financial analysis, as investors are now able to devote most of their time to analysis itself, rather than collecting data.
For supervisory bodies
When creating a report in XBRL format, users are informed about any errors or comments thanks to a number of validators. ESEF reporting offers greater data transparency and the ability to quickly analyze not only individual companies, but also the entire capital market. Unification of the structure of creating financial reports of companies listed on European stock markets increases the certainty as to the correctness of the data.

Comarch in International ESEF Tests

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is responsible for developing regulations regarding the uniform electronic reporting format in the European Union. In 2017, ESMA conducted tests aimed at the practical assessment of regulations being developed in the field of ESEF. Based on the lessons learned during these tests, ESMA refined and finalized the ESEF project.

Comarch SA was one of the 25 issuers from the European Union participating in the tests (Comarch SA shares are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange). Participation in the tests allowed Comarch to become familiar with the ESEF-related regulations and guidelines that were emerging at that time.

Experience gained during tests, and exemplary communication between the Comarch Financial Reporting teams and the Comarch ERP system production team, allowed us to develop a logical design of the new Comarch ESEF application, the use of which helps companies across the European Union meet new reporting requirements.

Comarch SA presented its financial report for 2019, created using the Comarch ESEF application, in iXBRL format, a year earlier than required by the new regulations.

More about ESEF on the ESMA websites>

ESEF tests with the participation of Comarch SA >

Financial reports in XBRL allow you to store tags/data about a selected item of a given financial report.

Each item in the statement can be marked/tagged. Such items may include the following information:
  • IFRS taxonomy entry (dictionary entry)
  • Period to which a given value applies
  • CurrencyRounding (e.g. amount in thousands or millions)
  • Name of the entity to which the data relate.

XBRL report within a browser

Watch the webinar about Comarch ESEF
During the webinar issues concerning the new ESEF regulation were discussed and the Comarch ESEF application was presented. We encourage you to watch this short video, where you will see how easy it is to generate financial statements in XBRL.

Comarch ESEF demo

Please leave your company name and your e-mail address and we will send you a link and instructions to Comarch ESEF demo

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