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Who should file AFS in iXBRL format

Applicability of filing annual financial statements in iXBRL format with CIPC

What is annual return?

The annual return is a statutory return required to be filed with CIPC in the case of every company or close corporation in South Africa. It is the filing of annual returns that helps CIPC to confirm that the entity is continuing its business operation. If the CIPC does not hold an annual return for an entity on record, it is likely that CIPC assumes the entity has ceased to trade. If that is not the case, then it may result in penalties or even potential deregistration of the entity in question.

Effective from 12 March 2019, the CIPC online process will capture Annual Returns (AR) only if the Annual Financial Statements (AFS) in XBRL or the Financial Accountability Supplements (FAS) via web form is submitted earlier.

Who needs to submit financial statements in iXBRL to CIPC?

In terms of Section 33 of the Act read together with Regulation 28, 29 and 30 of the Companies Regulations of 2011, the following entities must submit their Annual Financial Statements (AFS) in XBRL with their annual returns:

• All public listed companies
• State owned companies
• Companies whose Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) or Articles of Association requires the auditing of their financial statements
• Private or personal liability company, in the ordinary course of its primary activities, holding assets in a fiduciary capacity for persons who are not related to the company, and the aggregate value of such assets held at any time during the financial year exceeds R5 million
• Private or personal liability company that compiles the AFS internally (for example, by its Financial Director or its owner) and that has a Public Interest Score (“PIS”) of 100 or more;
• Private or personal liability company that compiles AFS by an independent party and that has a PIS of 350 or more
• Private or personal liability company not managed by its owners, which opted to have its AFS audited or voluntarily included audit as part of its MOI, may be subjected to an independent review if:
• It compiles its AFS internally and its PIS score is less than 100; and
• AFS compiled independently and its PIS is between 100 and 349.
• All close corporations who meet the same requirements above

A note for parent and subsidiary companies:

• An entity that controls one or more other entities are required to submit consolidated AFSs.
• Every domestic subsidiary needs to submit their individual AFSs. Parent entities must submit their own entity details plus consolidated details for ALL subsidiaries in the same set of AFSs.
• When a parent and subsidiaries have different dates of incorporation, the parent entity submit consolidated data for its subsidiaries as up to its own date of incorporation.