1 Standardization through XBRL Why XBRL? XBRL = open standard for - PDF document

The structural business statistics � Structural business statistics? • Yearly survey on the structure of enterprises (costs, profits, investments,…) • Asks for accounting data � Administrative burden: Administrative simplification structural business statistics survey, NSI Belgium – AB=((T time x P price ) + OOP) x Q frequency x Q number ) – AB= ((5.01 x €32) + 0) x 1 x 40,000) – AB= €6,412,800 or +/- €160 per actor Heerlen, 23-03-2011 http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be SBS survey simplification Study Federation Of Enterprises in Belgium (2007) � History SBS survey simplification Waste survey 0,1 – Initially (1995): paper only Labour cost survey 0,2 – In 2002: first administrative simplification Turnover in retail 0,3 • Deleting sections that are asked for twice (annual 0,5 ICT survey accounts, NSSO,...) Structure of earnings 1 Construction statistics 1,4 • Limited number of documents could be transferred by Statistics Transport by road 1,6 floppy disk to NSI Structural Business Statistics 10,9 – Result simplification: Balance of payments 11 • Up to 40% of sections were deleted Prodcom 13,2 intrastat 25,1 • +/- 92% of declarations on paper and 8% on floppy disk social balance 34,7 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 % burden http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be SBS Survey Simplification 2008 SBS Survey Simplification 2008 � Administrative simplification techniques – Gold-plating – Changing survey frequency • Checking to what extent national surveys are in line • Decrease frequency of the annexes with European statistical demands • negative coordination in the rotation scheme allows – Questioning fewer enterprises better spread across target population • The threshold for exhaustive surveying has been increased – E-government • A rotation scheme was introduced for SME’s, • Can we simplify the B2G information transfer and can estimation model for non – surveyed enterprises we do so without burdening the enterprise too much? • Administrative fines for non – responding enterprises • XBRL: Electronic reporting language based on XML – Avoiding double questioning (open standard) for the exchange of company data • Figures known from annual accounts are prefilled in the through the internet, limiting manipulation as much as questionnaire possible • Checks whether sum of subheadings equals the prefilled total from the annual account http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be 1

Standardization through XBRL Why XBRL? � XBRL = open standard for electronic exchange of information. � A lot of the information required by statistical surveys is available in the enterprises information system (eg accountancy data, data on personnel, …) � We need matching between the information in the enterprises information system and the statistical information required, XBRL allows this matching � XBRL in Belgium already being used by NBB, taxes administration, NSI, federal planning agency http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be What is XBRL? � XBRL works with taxonomies – = Type of dictionary in which elements are uniquely SBS survey simplification defined and additional characteristics added – Technically a taxonomy is a combination of xml files – The schema file contains the unique element declarations and basic characteristics – Linkbases add more characteristics to the elements: • Label linkbase: different labels in different languages • Reference linkbase: references • Presentation linkbase: lay - out of documents • Calculation linkbase (formula linkbase): order of operations • Definition linkbase http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be XBRL taxonomy editor screenshot Data collection based on XBRL � Three answering methods: SBS survey simplification – An application automatically constructs a websurvey from the XBRL taxonomy, enterprises can fill in the questionnaire online – An upload procedure to upload XBRL instances created from the enterprises information system – The paper questionnaire still exists http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be 2

Results: enterprise characteristics by Results declaration method Median Median no % filled in by Mean session Turnover employees external length accountant Paper 495 080 6 44% / Websurvey 1 627 493 12 35% 17 mins Upload 2 558 772 14 51% 8 mins procedure http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be Results: response over time Summary Results Before After simplification simplification Sample size 41,000 28,000 Deletion-pre-fill (upload) 40% 40% (95%) Electronic data transfer 8% 90% Paper questionnaires 92% 10% Data treatment process (in months) 11 7 Cost for enterprises 6,412,800 4,282,800 Staff (in FTE) 31.3 13.6 http://economie.fgov.be http://economie.fgov.be Plans for the future � Horizontal integration of the data collection process (organization per process instead of per survey) � All web surveys based on 3 tools: XBRL, Blaise and Java � One declaration platform for all web surveys � Expand the use of XBRL to other surveys (structure of earnings survey, tourism survey, transport of goods over the road survey) � Upgrade the XBRL web application to include XBRL dimensions http://economie.fgov.be 3