XBRL: The new standard for data exchange with the government

In 2016 there is a new method for data exchange with the Dutch government: Standard Business Reporting (SBR). This means that organisations may no longer submit their tax returns to the Tax Administration in XML format. From now on, all data for government bodies must be delivered according to the XBRL standard. Do companies and the government have the knowledge in house to use this new standard?

Who sets the right example?

Anyone who wonders how to interpret the SBR method, or what it means to implement XBRL, soon discovers that only a handful of specialists in the Netherlands really know this standard. While the Chamber of Commerce and the Tax Administration now only accept data in XBRL, it turns out that many government bodies themselves still use other standards such as XML.

A pragmatic solution

How do you find answers? Frans van Basten, founder of Digitect, explains: “We need to weigh up the benefits and the application of the SBR standard and XBRL technology critically. The current work on XBRL is driven primarily by technology, with completely new models being developed. Restructuring data costs a lot of time and money. I want to take a functional approach and look at options in which existing message models can be reused. In the coming months, together with Logius, the digital service provider of the Dutch government, and other business partners, we will investigate how XBRL can be applied efficiently.”