Spain gets ready for ESEF

22 mayo 2020.

Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), the College of Registrars of Spain and the Institute of Accounting and Accounts Auditing (ICAC) have reiterated the need for entitles trading on EU regulated markets to be prepared to submit their annual reports in accordance with the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) regulations.

With ESEF requirements coming into force for annual reports that relate to the period commencing on and after 1 January 2020, some companies in Spain have sought clarity about the approved methods for preparation of annual reports and for filing annual accounts and management reports to Spain’s Registro Mercantil (Mercantile Registry).

In response the CNMV, ICAC and the College of Registrars have underlined that all annual financial reports – including annual accounts and management reports – will need to be prepared in single electronic format (XHTML). Where financial reports include financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS Standards they be must be tagged in iXBRL. Finally, in Spain, the signatures of auditors and administrators must also be electronic.

Over the next few years the ESEF mandate is set to vastly improve transparency across the EU as all publicly traded companies in EU member states must begin filing standardised, comparable, electronic reports that, thanks to iXBRL tagging, can be easily and digitally analysed.