1. THE SINGAPORE EXPERIENCE
CRF 2012
Delhi 16 Feb 2012
Ms Juthika Ramanathan
Chief Executive of ACRA
To provide a responsive and trusted regulatory environment for
businesses and public accountants

2. Agenda
 Overview of Financial Reporting Process
 Objectives of Going XBRL
 Overcoming Challenges
 Future Plans
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3. Overview – Financial Reporting Process
Legal Obligations
 Imposed by Singapore Companies Act
 All companies are required to prepare financial statements in
accordance with prescribed Accounting Standards
 Directors are responsible for the financial statements
 All companies (other than solvent exempt private companies*) are
required to file financial statements with ACRA
 All filed financial statements are available for public information /
inspection
* An exempt private company is a company with no corporate shareholder and not more than 20
shareholders
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4. Overview – Financial Reporting Process
Directors Financial
Statements Auditor
 Preparer
 Ensures compliance
with Accounting
Standards and gives a true
and fair view Shareholders
 Responsible for filing
with ACRA  Tabled at AGM
Prepared and filed in XBRL
3rd Party
Promotes information Consumers
flow
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5. Objectives of Going XBRL
Manual data extraction Duplicative financial
by information retailers reporting regulatory
Challenges requirements
 Accurate?
 Cost efficient?  Same piece of data but
Timely? termed differently
 Different forms of
submission and reporting
timelines
Facilitate the eventual
Efficiently collect and establishment of a one-
promulgate value-added XBRL
stop filing by business to
corporate information the Government
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6. Why XBRL for ACRA?
 Adopting XBRL is aligned with ACRA’s overall strategic direction of
enabling:
 a pro-enterprise financial reporting environment for businesses in
Singapore; and
 a value enhancing financial information flow to the international
business community.
 Strategic goals to be achieved with XBRL adoption:
 XBRL will benefit the business community - Improving access to
data of Singapore companies
 Unlocking new value from financial information filed with ACRA
 Facilitating harmonised regulatory business reporting
 Strengthening our regulatory vigilance - A trusted business hub
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7. Reform in Filing of Financial Statements
– Going XBRL
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8. Transformation to XBRL
 Pro-enterprise design to minimise impact of XBRL implementation
on companies
 “Mandatory” requirement, with “soft” approach for buy-in and
engagement of key stakeholders
 Small taxonomy
 Choice of two filing options
 Full XBRL: Full set of financial statements in XBRL
 Partial XBRL: Minimum of statement of comprehensive
income and statement of financial position in XBRL
 Provide free XBRL preparation tool: FS Manager
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9. Using FS Manager to Prepare Financial Statements
FS Manager is designed to be used as a Financial Statements
Preparation Tool
ACRA FS Data Entry
Manager
XBRL
Importing from
accounting systems
XBRL
PDF Save as XBRL
Save as PDF
© Copyright Ecquaria Technologies Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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10. Using FS Manager to File Annual Return
FS Manager is also designed to upload and validate XBRL Financial
Statements (called instance documents) before filing to ACRA at
Annual Return Filing.
ACRA
BizFile
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL
ACRA FS
Manager
© Copyright Ecquaria Technologies Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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11. Benefits of Going XBRL
 Streamline existing inefficiencies in the entire spectrum of financial
information supply chain
 Enable information resellers who serve the business community
more time to focus on higher-value added activities
 Ability to provide users with value added financial data in an almost
instantaneous and interactive manner
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12. Benefits of Going XBRL
Open Analytics Singapore Financials Direct
 Public-private collaboration: XBRL-enabled analytical tools to provide
value-enhancing information at the fingertips of information users
 Individual company’s information
 Calculation power for statistics of companies’ financial performance:
 Financial ratio analysis
 Industry trend analysis
 Cumulative years trends analysis
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13. Ongoing / Future Plans
 Unlock potential of greater B2B, G2B
and G2G data use
 Streamline financial filing process to
provide a seamless filing experience
for the business community
 WOG effort for B2G: Making it easier
for business to report to the
Government
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14. Thank You