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XBRL FRC Taxonomies

News and Updates

The 2021 suite of FRC Taxonomies has been issued on 29 September 2020.

The suite is updated for all taxonomies except for the Irish Extensions which remain as per the 2019 version.  In addition to updates of all the existing taxonomies, a new taxonomy is now available called the UKSEF which can be used for UK reporting purposes to Companies House and HMRC.   It is a UK version of the ESEF Taxonomy and overseas entities wishing to file with Companies House need to use the UKSEF to file, since it contains the extra tags needed to file in the UK.

The amendments are summarized as follows, but for more detail please refer to the mappings and guides sections of this page.  Key information documents are produced for all the taxonomies.

Key changes to the 2021 suite

As part of continued efforts to increase digital enablement of accounts, we have enabled revised accounts. Disruption arising from the COVID pandemic has increased the need for this facility and highlighted the extent of the benefit that this will bring.

Covid Issues: additional income-related tags to cover the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme (CJRS) and other Covid-related grants have been added.
Off Payroll Working: additional tags have been added to cover revenue from off payroll working and off payroll working expenses. These new tags have been added for all entry-points (FRS 101, FRS 102, UK IFRS and Charities).
Pay Ratio Regulations: The Statutory Instrument ‘The Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018’ sets out requirements for the reporting of pay ratio information in the Directors’ Remuneration Report. All entry-points have been amended to cover these requirements.
SECR Reporting:  The SECR Taxonomy introduced in 2019 supersedes the greenhouse gas emissions reporting items present in the Directors’ Report. These tags have been removed (not deprecated, to avoid confusion with the SECR reporting requirements).

In addition, SECR reporting is an additional requirement for (large) companies who may choose to report using UK SEF. Consequently, the SECR taxonomy has been incorporated into the UKSEF taxonomy extension for the convenience of filers. This will avoid the complication of additional combined entry-points.

Who should use this suite?

The 2021 suite represent the most up to date version of the FRC Taxonomies and as such should be used to comply with HMRC requirements to fully tag.  The suite has been designed with full tagging in mind.  Accounts should be fully tagged, except for consolidated UKSEF data where regulations permit minimum tagging. Filers to Companies House should use the most-up to date version where possible. It is expected that Companies House will have enabled this suite by April 2021.  HMRC will have enabled the suite by 21 July 2021, at which point they will also have also updated their new version of the DPL Taxonomy.

Current Taxonomies


The following versions of the FRC Taxonomies are available to download:


The 2021 Taxonomy suite version 1.0.0 2021 (zip file)
The 2021 SECR Taxonomy 1.1.0 (2021) (zip file) 
The UKSEF Taxonomy 1.0.0 (2021) (zip file) 
The 2019 Taxonomy suite Version 1.1.0 (2019) (zip file)
The 2018 Taxonomy suite Version 1.0.0 (2018) (zip file)
The 2014 Taxonomy suite Version 2.1.0 (2014) (zip file)
The 2019 SECR Taxonomy Version 1.0.0 (2019) (zip file)

The 2021 suite relates to the FRC’s Taxonomies: UK IFRS, FRS 101, FRS 102, SECR, UKSEF and Charities and contains taxonomy documentation (supporting documents, key information sheets and release notes).

  1. The Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR) Taxonomy

The SECR taxonomy is an addition to the FRC Taxonomies suite to reflect the new reporting requirements for energy and carbon data introduced on 1st April 2019. The new requirements apply to all large companies and LLPs as well as to all listed companies and supersede Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting which has been in force since 2013. While it is not mandatory to tag SECR data, Government is keen to enable companies that file their annual reports digitally to be able to report their SECR data in the same way to ensure the same level of transparency is available to external users.

The taxonomy is standalone to enable it to be used with other accounting taxonomies in the FRC taxonomy suite. 

A feedback statement relating to the consultation is available here.

  1. The 2019 Taxonomy suite

The suite has been designed with full tagging in mind. Accounts should be fully tagged.

The Charity Accounts Taxonomy may be used by all charities preparing accounts in accordance with the Charities FRS 102 SORP and is mandatory for large charities with income over £6.5m. (See below for more information on the Charity Accounts Taxonomy)

  1. Irish Extension Taxonomy

An Irish extension of the 2019 taxonomy suite was released by the FRC on 28 May 2019 for the electronic tagging of Irish accounts to support the Irish Revenue Commissioners’ requirement for iXBRL financial statements as part of the Corporation Tax return.

For all information on this taxonomy see here

  1. Who should use the 2019 suite?

IFRS reporters need to use this suite to be able to digitally report under the IFRS standards. UK GAAP reporters applying the Triennial Review Amendments may also elect to use this suite to have access to the most up-to-date versions of the FRC Taxonomies and to comply with the HMRC requirement to fully tag. 

HMRC will accept submissions using this suite from 22 February 2019. Companies House and the Irish Revenue Commissioners have now enabled this version. Please refer to the HMRC Accepted Taxonomies page.

Micro and Small reporters should tag using only those parts of the FRS102 taxonomy which are relevant. FRS 101 reporters using the IFRS formats should tag using the extant IFRS taxonomy.

The suite has been designed with full tagging in mind. Accounts should be fully tagged.

The Charity Accounts Taxonomy may be used by all charities preparing accounts in accordance with the Charities FRS 102 SORP and is mandatory for large charities with income over £6.5m. (See below for more information on the Charity Accounts Taxonomy)

  1. Supporting Material

Mapping documents detailing all the changes to the suite since the 2019 version and the standard to which the changes relate can be found:

Mapping: Charities 2021 (Excel)
Mapping: FRS 101 2021 (Excel) 
Mapping: FRS 102 2021 (Excel) 
Mapping: IFRS 2021 (Excel) 
Mapping: UKSEF 2021 (Excel) 

The mapping documents are designed to enable software houses to easily identify the changes. Four colours are used with red denoting a deletion, green an addition, yellow a change to an existing line, and orange to indicate deprecated items.

Two new columns have been added to the start of each sheet to provide more information in relation to the change. The first column ‘Description of Change’ provides a brief but informative description of the nature of the changes. The second column ‘Ancestry Change’ indicates that a concept has moved with the current hierarchy.

Developer and Tagging guides are available in the section: Designs and Guides. The guides are applicable for all published versions of the taxonomies. A Design guide is also available which sets out the design principles behind the FRC Taxonomies. FRC Consistency Checks and Joint Filing Common Validation Checks are available in the section: Consistency Checks.

  1. UK Taxonomy Guidance

The FRC’s 2019 taxonomies suite has adopted a system of deprecating certain XBRL concepts. Deprecated concepts will include a Deprecated Label and a Deprecated Date Label and, for convenience, include a string appended to the concept's Standard Label such as "(Deprecated 2019-01-01)".

The reason for using deprecated concepts for the 2019 suite of amendments, is because the amendments relate to IFRS standards, but they do not relate to UK GAAP standards. The FRC’s 2019 taxonomy suite contains a ‘core’ that is common to each of the taxonomies in the suite. As a result of the amendments to IFRS, a number of concepts in the ‘core’ taxonomy are now deprecated to indicate their use IS NOT permitted for entities reporting under IFRS, although they can continue to be used by those entities reporting under FRS 102 and insurance filers. Should a future review of FRS 102 align it more closely with IFRS, then some of these deprecated concepts may be removed from the ‘core’ to the extent the reporting requirements become aligned across the standards.

  1. Technical Note

UK practice for marking a concept as "Deprecated" is to include a string appended to the concept's Standard Label in the form "(Deprecated 2019-01-01)". In addition, the concept is given a Deprecated Label[1] and a Deprecated Date Label[2].

The content of the Deprecated Label may describe the circumstances under which the concept has been deprecated and may suggest an alternative concept to use. The Deprecated Date Label provides the date of publication of the taxonomy to which the deprecation has been applied.

The date is for informational purposes only and does not affect validation.

[1] A Deprecated Label is one which uses the link role:
http://www.xbrl.org/2009/role/deprecatedLabel

[2] A Deprecated Date Label is one which uses the link role:
http://www.xbrl.org/2009/role/deprecatedDateLabel

  1. Consultation and Feedback documents

SECR Taxonomy

A draft Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR) Taxonomy was released for consultation over the summer 2019. It was a proposed addition to the FRC Taxonomies suite to reflect the new reporting requirements for energy and carbon data introduced on 1st April 2019. The taxonomy is standalone to enable it to be used with other accounting taxonomies in the FRC taxonomy suite.

The SECR Taxonomy suite was released on Yeti for consultation and closed on 30th September. You can see the Consultation here - https://uk-taxonomies-tdp.corefiling.com/yeti

In addition to Yeti responses, BEIS & The FRC raised some relevant questions to promote interest in the consultation & generate discussion about SECR taxonomy and its use. The questions can also be found in the form of a short survey here.

2019 Taxonomies

The 2019 suite was subject to a consultation and a Feedback statement (PDF).

Whilst the consultations are now closed, Yeti is open for comments on any issues regarding the 2019 taxonomies suite and the SECR Taxonomy. Evidence of issues which arise with use of the FRC taxonomies is of interest to the FRC and we encourage responses either via Yeti (https://uk-taxonomies-tdp.corefiling.com/yeti/resources/yeti-gwt/Yeti.jsp) or emailed to xbrl@frc.org.uk.

  1. The 2018 Taxonomy suite

The 2018 taxonomy suite released on 18 December 2017 reflects the Triennial Review amendments made to UK GAAP Financial Reporting Standards on 14 December 2017. These amendments are effective for years commencing on or after 1 January 2019. Early adoption is permitted.

The suite reflects IFRS standards endorsed by the EU as of December 2017, except for IFRSs 9,15 and 16.

  1. Who should use the 2018 suite?

UK GAAP reporters who have adopted the Triennial Review amendments may elect to use this suite. IFRS reporters may use this suite for financial reporting except where they are applying the newly endorsed standards IFRS 9, IFRS 15 and/or IFRS 16.

Micro and Small reporters should tag using only those parts of the FRS102 taxonomy which are relevant. FRS 101 reporters using the IFRS formats should tag using the extant IFRS taxonomy: Mapping: FRC 2018 Taxonomy Report - IFRS (Excel)

HMRC has adopted the 2018 taxonomy suite for filing of accounts and last updated their systems in April 2018. The taxonomies are mandatory for HMRC for accounts that are prepared under FRS 101, FRS 102 and EU-adopted IFRS.

The suite has been designed will full tagging in mind, so accounts must be fully tagged insofar as the taxonomy used contains appropriate XBRL tags. Please refer to the HMRC Accepted Taxonomies page.

The Charity Accounts Taxonomy may be used by all charities preparing accounts in accordance with the Charities FRS 102 SORP and is mandatory for large charities with income over £6.5m

  1. Charity Accounts Taxonomy

An updated version of the Charity taxonomy was released by the FRC and the Charity Commission (CC) on 29 September 2020 for the electronic tagging of charity accounts to support the CC’s objectives of enhancing the quality and accessibility of financial reporting for Charities in the UK and Ireland. Those reporters not early adopting the amended FRS 102 standard who wish to continue to report using the previous version of the charity taxonomies, may continue to do so. The iXBRL accounts tagging convention (Charity “taxonomy”) has been updated in line with the Charity SORP (FRS 102) and the FRC’s financial reporting standard FRS 102.

The taxonomy will be used when tagging charity accounts for electronic filing and for other analytical purposes. Electronic tagging helps users of financial information to extract relevant information from charity reports and analyse it more efficiently. 

Charities 2021 Taxonomies (zip file) 
Charities 2019 Taxonomies (zip file)
FRC press release
Charity Commission press release
Feedback Statement (PDF)
Responses to the consultation

  1. The 2014 Taxonomy Suite

The 2014 Taxonomy suite should only be used for financial reporting to HMRC under UK GAAP if you have not yet adopted the Triennial Review amendments made to UK GAAP on 14 December 2017. If you have adopted these amendments, you should not be using this suite because in doing so you will not be able to comply with the HMRC requirement to fully tag. This taxonomy suite should not be used on or after 1 January 2019. Please refer to the HMRC Accepted Taxonomies page.
The 2014 Taxonomy suite can be used to report with to Companies House; who accept this suite.
Contact the XBRL Project Director at XBRL@frc.org.uk

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The over-arching objective is to provide taxonomies which enable the efficient conversion of corporate reporting into XBRL reports and reflect current UK regulations and other frameworks. 
 
This means taxonomies which:

  • Clearly and accurately define the XBRL tags needed to identify specific information. 

  • Cover the data in financial statements which is useful for analysis, comparison, or review by existing and potential consumers of XBRL reports. 

  • Are easy and efficient to use. 

  • Provide clear and consistent tagged information which can be used effectively by consumers of XBRL information. 

 
The taxonomies should, as far as is practical:

  • Be in line with technology available in the marketplace and with relevant regulatory scope and remit.

  • Enable complete tagging of the main financial statements and other key monetary and numeric data in the main body of financial statements, where required by regulations. 

  • Facilitate tagging, for the purposes of identification, of all textual information which is important to the interpretation and meaning of an annual report and accounts.  This means high-level tagging to indicate the presence and scope of particular textual statements, but not necessarily granular tagging of the detailed components of such statements. 

  • Play a role in encouraging the creation of further taxonomies and the embedding of a digital focus for FRC core policy areas through a combination of innovation, outreach, promotion, and education activities.

 
It is not practical to define tags to cover every eventuality or item which may be reported in annual reports.  However, appropriate techniques, such as the use of analysis tags, enable comprehensive tagging of most financial schedules in accounts without requiring a particularly large number of tags in the taxonomies. 
 
Despite the general aims, particular areas of reporting may not be in scope for detailed tagging where these are:
 
a)         Very varied in content and form across companies. 
b)         Highly specialised – either in general or for the sector concerned. 
c)         Not expected to be a high priority for analysis by likely users of accounts. 
 
Areas of reporting have been excluded from detailed tagging if they meet at least two of these criteria.
 
Many design features of the FRC taxonomies have stood the test of time.  Unnecessary change would have an adverse effect on familiarity and efficiency and would serve to increase cost and risk. 

It is desirable that any new pronouncements of standards and regulations should specify that digital reporting should be facilitated, with the directional aim of  regulations, standards and taxonomies being provided simultaneously.
 
Accordingly, the following principles are intended to help the decision-making process when changes are requested to the FRC Taxonomies and should be applied before putting forward any new proposed taxonomy work and, to establish the order of priority of work:
           

  • Promote brevity, comprehensibility and usefulness in accounts and annual reports

  • Proposed changes are supported by all relevant regulators UK and Irish regulators

  • Reduce the burden on companies and those that prepare digital financial reporting

  • Reduce the burden on Government (UK and Irish regulators)

  • Provide value for money in the public interest & better outcomes for all stakeholders

  • Contribute to efforts to tackle economic crime

  • Contribute to achievement, measurement, validation, or enforcement of Government objectives

  • To maintain high standards of financial reporting and improve the quality of digital reporting

  • To increase transparency

  • To lead and influence internationally in digital reporting and simultaneously have regard for the need for comparability that users need to make effective decision making.

  • To assist preparers of the financial statements in clearly understanding their reporting obligations.

 
The principles are all relevant and the order of them does not denote a ranking or relative importance.  In devising the principles, the needs of users and regulators are given equal weighting. 

An Irish extension of the 2019 taxonomy suite was released by the FRC on 28 May 2019 for the electronic tagging of Irish accounts to support the Irish Revenue Commissioners’ requirement for iXBRL financial statements as part of the Corporation Tax return. The Irish extension aims to bridge the financial reporting differences between the UK and Ireland and users are invited to contact j.guest@frc.org.uk if they note any issues with the extension. In addition, the extension includes the Detailed Profit and Loss within each of the entry points for FRS 101, FRS 102 and EU IFRS, which will allow users to tag a Detailed Profit and Loss account and provide values for the mandatory items required in submissions to the Irish Revenue Commissioners.
 
The Irish Revenue Commissioners expect to accept submissions using the Irish extension from 17 June 2019. Please refer to the Irish Revenue Commissioners’ iXBRL page for further information.

 
Irish Extension Taxonomy (zip file)

Associated documents

The charity taxonomy follows a similar approach in content, design and style to the existing UK GAAP and IFRS taxonomies, published by the FRC, that are currently used by UK organisations in submitting their accounts in iXBRL format. The taxonomies contain design improvements which should allow easier, fuller and more accurate tagging of accounts data in iXBRL. Their content has been carefully developed to reflect expected reporting under the relevant standards. Read or download a Developers Guide (PDF), Tagging Guide (PDF) and Accounts Taxonomies Design Guide (PDF). 

The taxonomies have been developed by a project team at the FRC with guidance from a technical task force and under the oversight of a Governance Committee which includes staff from leading advisors, BEIS, HMRC, Companies House, Charity Commission and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, as well as the FRC. XBRL UK has also been involved.

Whilst the consultation is now closed, Yeti is open for comments on any issues regarding the 2021 taxonomies suite. Evidence of issues which arise with use of the FRC taxonomies is of interest to the FRC and we encourage responses either via Yeti (https://uk-taxonomies-tdp.corefiling.com/yeti/resources/yeti-gwt/Yeti.jsp) or emailed to j.guest@frc.org.uk.

A set of Consistency Checks documents that will aid developers and preparers in creating checks on summation and consistent tagging of accounts are available here (Zip file).

The original consultation on the extant taxonomies closed on 8 July 2014. The comment letter responses which the FRC received can be found here. Documents relating to the Consultation:

Press release 

Consultation: XBRL Accounts Taxonomies 

 

Phil FitzGerald, FRC (Chair)
Alexandra Walters, Companies House
Alison Rees, Companies House
David Lydford-Smith, ICAEW
James Fagan, Irish Revenue
Jennifer Guest, FRC
Jon Rowden, PwC
Kim Andrews, Charity Commission
Lee Piller, FCA
Marshall Matthews, KPMG
Paul Smith, BEIS
Philip Allen, XBRL UK
Robert Stenhouse, Deloitte
Rosana Mircovic, BEIS
Sean Callaghan, EY
Tim Lloyd-Langston, HMRC

Jennifer Guest, FRC (Chair)
Anahita Roshanfekr, IRIS Software Group
Andrew Besley, Thomson Reuters
Ayaz Mahmood, Sage
Carl Palfrey, Companies House
Kashi Booluck, PwC
Kim Andrews, Charity Commission
Mark Wardaugh, HMRC
Marshall Matthews, KPMG
Nicolas Duvauchel, CoreFiling
Olivier Cornet, Invoke Software Ltd
Simon Warren, Caseware
Siobhan Wilkes, TaxCalc
Stephan van Niekerk, Ernst & Young

Two white papers on the successful use of XBRL in the UK and on Inline XBRL have been published on xbrl.org.uk. These are an important means of explaining the benefits of the UK approach and encouraging efficient use of XBRL in other projects.  

Accounting and Reporting Policy