iXBRL filing has been with us for nearly a year and the majority of contractor accountants say it has caused disruption to their practices.
In fact 86% of the accountants surveyed by CCH said the system had disrupted their practice and 57% said they had problems implementing it.
iXBRL online filing was introduced in April 2011. 19% of the survey’s respondents said they found it extremely difficult to implement and a further 38% said it was somewhat difficult. However, 8% found it really easy and 35% thought the process was relatively easy.
Only 14% of respondents reported negligible disruption from iXBRL. 28% said implementing iXBRL caused minor disruption, a further 38% admitted that there was noticeable disruption and 20% complained that both their clients and practice suffered considerable disruption.
As with any new system, when iXBRL first came into being, there were concerns over filing success rates. 52% of accountants said their documentation was accepted first time in more than 90% of cases. However, 5% said their first time acceptance rate was less than 50%.
The survey was a snapshot of just 165 respondents, 133 of them were accountants in practice and the remaining 32 worked in business. Some people may question whether 165 accountants is a true representation of the experiences of the accounting profession as a whole.
However, the fact remains that a large proportion of the sample did experience some kind of disruption and HMRC may want to bear that in mind when it devises new systems in the future.
