Conix: Open source converter to iXBRL for ESRS taxonomy.

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) is responsible for the development of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). The ESRS reporting format is based on the iXBRL standard and the XBRL taxonomies developed by EFRAG at www.efrag.org/lab4

Companies’ IT systems that manage sustainability reporting shall, at the end of the reporting period, export the corresponding reports in iXBRL format.

The ESRS iXBRL technical solution has three main features: (1) The report is unique, both for the regulator and the market, (2) The report is unique for humans (readable as HTML web page) and for computers (iXBRL tagged information), and (3) Each relevant unit information is uniquely identified (tagged) with the corresponding ESRS concept (Data Point).

Conix is an open source proof-of-concept solution for those who are not very familiar with iXBRL. It basically imports a minimal XML file and exports a fully tagged iXBRL ESRS file. The transformation program is a locally executable JavaScript.

The input file is a very basic XML file with minimal ESRS-iXBRL meta-information. Paragraphs are basically free text. Headers, tables and other ‘’decorations‘’ use a simplified HTML description. Each ‘relevant’ ESRS paragraph should be wrapped (tagged) with a simplified pseudo-iXBRL structure, indicating the corresponding ESRS concept.

An open source JavaScript code transforms the input info file into an exported iXBRL output file, according to the ESRS XBRL taxonomy.

The iXBRL file can now be visually reviewed and technically validated. The open source platform Arelle is recommended as validator.

Finally, the iXBRL file can now be published on the company’s website, distributed in the market and filed to the National Competition Authority.

Explore in github the documentation, JavaScript code, and examples.

Acknowledgement of intellectual property. Authors: Ignacio Boixo (easyESEF CEO and Founder) and Max Macanas (Univ. Tech. Munich, easyESEF scholarship), 2024. Contact: info@easyesef.eu

Open Source development, copyrigth © under EUPL license and Creative Commons By  

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