Reference: Project / Writing date: / Page:
Eurostat: X-DIS/XBRL PILOT PROJECT / 04-07-2006 / 1
Software AG:
PHC6CE1/XDIS_SBS_INVENTORY / Version: 1.03

TAXONOMY INVENTORY

AND MAPPINGS FOR

SBS FRAMEWORK

X-DIS/XBRLPILOT PROJECT

(Working draft for internal discussions

Please, do not distribute without permission of Eurostat)

INDEX

1.GLOSSARY

2.OBJECTIVES OF THE DOCUMENT

3.STATISTICAL REQUIREMENTS OVERVIEW

4.SBS FRAMEWORK OVERVIEW

5.RELEVANT FINANCIAL REPORTING TAXONOMIES

6.CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE MAPPING TASK

7.MAPPINGS FOR BELGIAN SBS

8.MAPPINGS FOR SPANISH SBS

9.MAPPINGS FOR DUTCH SBS

10.CONCLUSIONS

11.BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.GLOSSARY

The following table offers a relationship of some frequently used XBRL terms:

Table1. XBRL terms being used in this document.

Concept / Definition
XBRL / eXtensible Business Reporting Language - an XML based framework that provides the financial community with a method to prepare, publish in a variety of formats, extract and exchange financial statements - it is expected to have major implications for all concerned with presentation and analysis of company accounts. Development is led by a Steering Committee of over 100 organisations and corporations including the US Census Bureau. XBRL taxonomies already existed for some specific reporting schemes, such as US GAAP, and are under development for many others, including IAS and several national GAAPs.
XBRL report / It is the XML document compliant with XBRL spec, which contains the values (facts) defined by the taxonomy which it belongs to. Form the technical point of view, it is the XML document that can be validated against the xsd schema.
XBRL Taxonomy / XBRL taxonomies are "vocabularies" or "dictionaries" created by a group in order to exchange financial information.
NSI / National Statistics Institutions refers to the National body in charge for compilation and dissemination of statistical information at a country level. Depending on the country it can include the Statistical Office as well as Central Bank or Ministers as they Legal Framework assigns them competencies.
ESS / European Statistical System – includes NSIs, MemberState government departments and agencies engaged in statistical activities, central banks, international bodies active in EU statistics, etc
SBS / Structural business statistics (SBS) form one of the basic statistical tools for measuring and monitoring the Union’s competitiveness and entrepreneurship and it covers all market activities in industry and services (NACE C – K). Economic and employment variables are collected annually at a detailed level.
EU / European Union
EEC / European Economic Community.
NACE / Classification of Economic Activities within the European. Communities", known by the acronym NACE and originallypublished by Eurostat in 1970.The acronym "NACE" derives from the French title: Nomenclature générale des activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes.
IFRS / IFRS Acronym for International Financial Reporting Standards.General term for the accounting standards issued by the IASB. TheIFRS consist of a theoretical Framework as well as a large numberof International Accounting Standards (IAS) and International FinancialReporting Standards (IFRS) covering specific subject areasin detail. The Standards are supplemented by Interpretations ofspecific topics issued by the Standing Interpretations Committee(SIC) and the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC).
GAAP / The common set of accounting principles, standards and procedures that companies use to compile their financial statements. GAAP are a combination of authoritative standards (set by policy boards) and simply the commonly accepted ways of recording and reporting accounting information.
GL / A book of final entry summarizing all of a company's financial transactions, through offsetting debit and creditaccounts. It is usually base don a chart f accounts.
FR / Financial Reporting.
SME / SMEs are small-scale entrepreneurial private enterprises: they are usually defined as having less than 250 employees. In recent years, the important role of SMEs has been recognized as a key to sustainable economic development. SMEs are potentially disadvantaged by globalization issues in areas such as information technology, international trade regulations, and intellectual property rights.
NBB / National Bank of Belgium
C-I / Commercial and Industry sectors whom mandatory financial reporting is regulated by EU 4th and 7th directives.

2.OBJECTIVES OF THE DOCUMENT

Software AG has been awarded with the contract for the development of the Eurostat's XBRL pilot project. The project targets the evaluation of the possibilities to apply XBRL technologies for compilation and dissemination of the information required by the ESS (European Statistical System).

Since ESS policies are rather large, and has been evolving over several years, there is a necessary previous work to be done in understanding the current State of Art of the Statistical European Policy. A correct understanding of this Statistical Environment should guarantees that project scope is properly defined and implied tasks sized as required.

Previous project has demonstrated the technical suitability of XBRL and the benefits provided for the introduction of structured data in the data collection process.

The current document aims in discussing about the requirement for building European taxonomies particularized for SBS framework.

3.STATISTICAL REQUIREMENTS OVERVIEW

The picture below represents the information flows between the statistics stakeholders. Two main communication flows can be identified:

  1. between enterprises reporting data to NSIs and related National Institutions, based in a exchange of surveys which are filled by enterprises and reported back to National Institutions.
  1. the ones which involves aggregated data collected from surveys by National Institutions to Eurostat.

Basic surveys are provided by EU Institutions to National Institution and these decide to extend captured information to collect a more detailed landscape for National purposes. This possible extensibility must be considered by the project team.

Starting from (EEC) 2186/93 Regulation [1], European Union launched the implementation of a long term Statistical Program to provide detailed Statistical information to the European bodies in the policy areas defined by the Commission. The list of Themes and their corresponding activity areas is provided in the table below.

Chapter – SubActivity / Theme (action)
I. Support for statistical outputs, technical
infrastructure / 10 Quality management and evaluation
11 Classifications
12 Statistical training
13 IT-infrastructures and services for Eurostat
14 IT-normalisation and collaborative infrastructures for the ESS
15 Reference data and meta-data warehouses
16 Information
17 Dissemination
18 Statistical coordination
19 Statistical cooperation with the candidate countries
21 Statistical cooperation with other third countries
22 Statistical research and methodology
25 Data security and statistical confidentiality
II. Demographic and social statistics / 31 Population
32 Labour market
33 Education
34 Culture
35 Health and safety
36 Distribution of incomes and living conditions
37 Social protection
38 Other work in the field of demographic and social statistics
39 Consumer protection
III.A. Macroeconomic statistics / 40 Annual economic accounts
41 Quarterly accounts
42 Financial accounts
43 Monitoring own resources
55 Prices
57 Statistics for business cycle analysis
III.B. Business statistics / 44 Statistics on the economic activity of enterprises
45 Energy
48 Transport
49 Information society
50 Tourism
51 Business registers
III.C. Monetary, financial, trade and balance of
payments statistics / 52 Money and finance
53 Trade in goods
54 Trade in services and balance of payments
IV. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries / 61 Land use and landscape
62 Agricultural structures
63 Agricultural monetary statistics
64 Crop production
65 Animal production
66 Agro-industry statistics
67 Coordination and reform of agricultural statistics
68 Forestry statistics
69 Fisheries statistics
V. Multi-domain statistics / 70 Sustainable development
71 Environment statistics
72 Regional statistics
73 Science and technology
74 Geographical and local information
VII. Resources and management / 91 International and interinstitutional relations
92 Management and statistical programmes
93 Management of human resources
94 Management of financial resources
95 Management of legal bases
96 Audit
97 General administration
99 Decentralised management

Each of the previous Themes includes compilation and merging of Statistical information from a set of Statistical and specialized defined frameworks.

As a consequence of the requirements of the different areas, statistical necessities in the different Themes have been evolving during the years. Periodically, the Commission publishes and updated document covering the main Statistical Requirements for the intended period. The latest document is the Compendium 2005 [2] which overviews the relationship between the Themes with the framework(s) that source information for year 2005.

We have identified some of the following statistical frameworks:

  • Structured Business Statistics – SBS
  • Structured Short Term Statistics – STS
  • Balance of Payments – BoP/IIP
  • National Accounts – ESA95
  • PRODCOM
  • LFS
  • EU-SILC
  • Trade
  • REGIO

Currently, as far as we know, information is finally being collected by Eurostat, which receives aggregated data from the NSI, National Central Banks and other National institutions belonging to 25 Member States.

The data is provided, in turn, to the National Institutions, through surveys which are filled by a set of previously agreed companies.

To understand the domain model we will focus firstly in analyzing the SBS framework.

4.SBS FRAMEWORK OVERVIEW

We will overview the functional dependences between the SBS characteristics and the accounting parameters necessary for a reliable mapping, and we will try to give response to the question suggested by the Task 1 in the Project roadmap about if a common set of source variables shared in the procedures for obtaining SBS characteristics in different Member States would allow to work out an SBS European Taxonomy.

We will also demonstrate that this proposed ad-hoc procedure for obtaining an European taxonomy does not seems to be suitable and expose how the problem exhibits further complexity inherited from the complex domain model with multiple constraints and, therefore, the existence of multiple scenarios that deserves being analyzed in further detail.

The business requirements are to collect, process and publish all statistical data laid down in the StructuralBusiness Statistics regulation (58/97) and its amendments, collect, process and publish allstatistical data laid down in the regulation on steel statistics adopted by the Council and theParliament in 2003, ensure high quality output and apply a high service ethos to main users inEU institutions.

Structural business statistics (SBS) form one of the basic statistical tools for measuring andmonitoring the Union’s competitiveness and entrepreneurship and it covers all market activities inindustry and services (NACE C – K). Economic and employment variables are collected annuallyat a detailed level.

The Objectives of the data collection are:

  • To disseminate high quality statistics on the structure of European businesses
  • To ensure full compliance with the SBS regulation
  • To further pursue the quality action plan in relation to structural business statistics
  • To implement and continue projects covering areas like business demography, business services, international sourcing, factors of business success
  • To pursue the adoption of the FATS regulation and start the collection of data on foreign affiliates
  • To balance the response burden on enterprises with the increasing needs of users
  • To identify and test new ways of data collection with the aim to reduce response burden

And the key priorities for 2006 in Structural Business Statistics are:

  • full compliance with SBS regulation and timely delivery of the complete data to users,
  • A more effective data transmission and production system and the continuation of the quality action plan aim at reaching these objectives,
  • Responsiveness to user needs should be ensured with the continuation of the development programme and the adoption of the recast of the SBS regulation,
  • Implementation of the proposed regulation on statistics on foreign affiliates will start,
  • For all three areas, the implementation of NACE/CPA Rev2 will start, which will have a considerable impact on all three areas.

The involved Legal acts for SBS framework are:

Council Regulation No: 58/97/EC, Euratom of 20/12/96: OJ: L014 of 17/01/97, *structural business statistics
Council Regulation No: 410/98/EC, Euratom of 16/02/98: OJ: L052 of 21/02/98, *amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics
Council Regulation No: 2699/98/EC of 17/12/98: OJ: L344 of 18/12/98, *concerning the derogations to be granted for structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 2700/98/EC of 17/12/98: OJ: L344 of 18/12/98, *concerning the definitions of characteristics for structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 2701/98/EC of 17/12/98: OJ: L344 of 18/12/98, *concerning the series of data to be produced for structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 2702/98/EC of 17/12/98: OJ: L344 of 18/12/98, *concerning the technical format for the transmission of structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1225/1999/EC of 27/05/99: OJ: L154 of 19/06/99, *concerning the definitions of characteristics for insurance services statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1226/1999/EC of 28/05/99: OJ: L154 of 19/06/99, *concerning the derogations to be granted for insurance services statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1227/1999/EC of 28/05/99: OJ: L154 of 19/06/99, *concerning the technical format for the transmission of insurance services statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1228/1999/EC of 28/05/90: OJ: L154 of 19/06/99, *concerning the series of data to be produced for insurance services statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1618/1999/EC of 23/07/99: OJ: L192 of 24/07/99, *concerning the criteria for the evaluation of quality of structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1112/2001/EC of 06/06/01: OJ: L151 of 07/06/01, *concerning derogations from the provisions of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 in respect of insurance services statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1614/2002/EC of 06/09/02: OJ: L 244 of 12/09/02, *adjusting Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 to economic and technical developments and amending Commission Regulations (EC) No 2700/98, (EC) No 2701/98 and (EC) No 2702/98
Parliament and Council Regulation No: 2056/2002/EC of 05/11/02: OJ: L 317 of 21/11/02, *amending Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1667/2003/EC of 01/09/03: OJ: L244 of 29/09/03, *implementing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 with regard to derogations to be granted for structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1668/2003/EC of 01/09/03: OJ: L244 of 29/09/03, *implementing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 with regard to the technical format for the transmission of the structural business statistics and amending Commission Regulation No 2702/98 concerning the technical format for the transmission of structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1669/2003/EC of 01/09/03: OJ: L244 of 29/09/03, *implementing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 with regard to the series of data to be produced for structural business statistics and amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 2701/98 concerning the series of data to be produced for structural business statistics
Commission Regulation No: 1670/2003/EC of 01/09/03: OJ: L244 of 29/09/03, *implementing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 with regard to the definitions of characteristics for structural business statistics and amending Regulation (EC) No 2700/98 concerning the definitions of characteristics for structural business statistics
Parliament and Council Regulation No: 48/2004/EC of 05/12/03: OJ: L7 of 13/01/04, *on the production of annual Community statistics on the steel industry for the reference years 2003-2009
Commission Regulation No: 772/2005/EC of 20/05/05: OJ: L128 of 21/05/05, concerning the specifications for the coverage of the characteristics and the definition of the technical format for the production of annual Community Statistics on steel for the reference years 2003 to 2009 (Text with EEA relevance).

Such regulations provide:

  • Definition for SBS characteristics in the 6 involved sectors: industry, services/trades, construction, credit entities, insurance and pension funds.
  • Data timeliness
  • Data requirements derogations and additions by MemberState
  • Other relevant information to structural data compilation.

5.RELEVANT FINANCIAL REPORTING TAXONOMIES

The figures below depict the reporting scenario taking place at the European Union. From it, we can deduce the reporting frameworks which should work as source for SBS characteristics.

On one hand, previously to IFRS and homogenization of accounting principles all along European Union, different regulations applied for financial reporting. European Unionproposed a core layout of information to be disclosed. Every country, in turn, implemented the overall directives making a National adaptation.

On the other hand, from an IFRS perspective, expected to be adopted as mandatory in most of European Countries by 2007, a different set of reporting frameworks can be depicted.

For every one of the previous reporting frameworks, an XBRL taxonomy is associated. This set of taxonomies will constitute the source of information for our target. Theses financial taxonomies must be completed with other set of more general purpose taxonomies for providing non financial information, as GCD for Global Common Data for companies, or its Spanish counterpart, DGI.

6.CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE MAPPING TASK

According to the mapping process we can find different approaches, each one with different advantages and drawbacks.

  • Mapping against National GAAPs. This is the proposed procedure in the Tasksscheduled on the project and intends to find a common set of elements which will be eligible to constitute the European SBS taxonomy. This approach suffers, however, from the fact, that it requires modification on the current NSI processes, at short time, and this could complicates the Task 5 of the project (Acceptance) since NSI and reporting institutions would need to carry out projects to recalculate SBS. Probably this is not acceptable upon an imminent change on regulatory principles to IFRS standards. Nevertheless, we will explain later that if a common set of accounting variables is required, it can be obtained from the EU regulations itself, as an opposite method to the ad-hoc mechanism against National GAAPs described here.
  • In order to maintain the current NSI processes, is possible to maintain the set of variables which NSIs are currently using for attain SBS information in the NSI questionnaires.

Considering that SBS is a statistical taxonomy, the main issue in the mapping task is to obtainfroma suitable source accounting variables that allows calculation of the SBS characteristics, or in other words, work out a correct breakdown for each SBS characteristic based on some of this 5 types of parameters:

Each of these types of variable depends on the nature of the variable source:

  • FR information, as those accounting items disclosed by enterprises following their National regulation. We can distinguish here variables that could be based on traditional GAAP principles or on IAS/IFRS principles,
  • GL (General Ledger) information as accounting information structured following a local classification like a National or sectoral chart of accounts. These variables lacks for some comparability capabilities based on their local scope.
  • Administrative sources, comprising the information already available in the NSI, either because it already exists in their local registers or databases or as information requested to another regulatory institution, and therefore, not being requested to the enterprise directly,
  • “Rule of thumb” variables, as those variables which are deduced by the NSI for some special company contexts (like company activity sector or company size). E.g.: assuming a unique activity sector for some SME enterprises, it is not necessary to request the turnover breakdown for these companies and Turnover variable is enough, so NSI can combine with activity sector in the process of aggregation to work out the SBS reports.
  • Other variables from the same framework. Sometimes a determined variable from the framework can be obtained from other variable within the framework. The only constraint in such a case should be avoiding circular referencing, i.e. every variable must be referenced to another which breakdown is already obtainable,
  • Concepts from scratch, as the variables that new to be created since none of previous options is valid for representing certain accounting concept.

The mapping task implies, for each SBS characteristic to obtain a correct breakdown based on the previous types of variables.