Johannesburg, 14 August 2018 – Business reporting just got a whole lot easier. With Industry 4.0 galvanising a shift towards automated and interconnected processes, it only makes sense that business reporting should receive a streamlined make-over. The Southern African-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SAGCCI) hosted the experts from Lofty Brainchild at its Johannesburg head office for a workshop centred around the latest product of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

Discussions were facilitated by the managing directors of Lofty Brainchild as well as Mr Joey Mathekga of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and centred around the implications of automating data collection and business reports with XBRL. XBRL allows for all entities in the value chain to communicate high fidelity information effectively with a common understanding of the references within.

Earlier this year, the CIPC issued a directive that from 1 July 2018, all companies are required to submit their Annual Financial Statements (AFS) in XBRL format. This directive is driven by South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry and is intended to automate the process of data collection for the CIPC. Furthermore, filing in XBRL will also serve to ease the process of analysing companies’ AFS. Ideally, this Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) data solution should ease the administrative burden of regulatory compliance for businesses.

The workshop offered an extensive overview of XBRL and its role in this new era of industry as well as the many benefits this system can offer to companies and organisations. Lofty Brainchild zeroed in on queries around the types of companies affected by this directive, the accounting reporting periods that XBRL will apply to, the deadlines for companies’ first AFS submissions, and the various solutions that Lofty Brainchild can provide in assisting companies in meeting their filing requirements.

The representatives from Lofty Brainchild went on to introduce attendees to its partnership with Amana Consulting GmbH, which is headquartered in Essen, Germany. Amana Consulting has assisted many companies with similar compliance requirements on the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Dax. Amana Consulting is one of the leading XBRL and disclosure management solutions providers in Europe.

During a question and answer session, guests engaged on these new regulations and many left with peace of mind, knowing the practical steps they could take to ensure that their businesses are able to timeously meet the new compliance requirements.

About Lofty Brainchild
Lofty Brainchild is an Information Technology services provider currently focused on the delivery of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) products and services. Through the solutions offered we are able to service customers in both the public sector and private sector by providing them with the platform to make their XBRL filings and submissions without any hassles. Our versatile and dedicated team of experts possess a leveraged experience of more than 30 years spanning the domains of software development, data warehousing, solutions architecture and accounting. The team has implemented a multitude of solutions in the banking, manufacturing and supply chain, and higher finance sectors both locally and globally. This has presented the team with the combined background to tackle challenges of varying complexity and magnitude. In addition to the experience of our executive team, Lofty Brainchild has also partnered up with a leading international accounting software provider, Amana Consulting GMBH, which has implemented XBRL reporting at a global financial services provider which is listed on the NYSE.

The Amana XBRL Tagger is certified by XBRL International