For fiscal years starting on or after January 1, 2022, there is a requirement that the notes of your annual financial report are marked-up as a whole. This is usually referred to as block tagging. In this short article we will go over how to carry out hypertagging, which is a way to block tag the notes through the use of hyperlinks.
What Is Block Tagging?
ESMA requires issuers of annual financial reports to mark-up the financial statements with individual XBRL tags, which means that each element needs to be mapped in accordance with the ESEF taxonomy. The notes section is a different matter, however, as you will need to apply mark-ups for whole sections.
Keep in mind, that these are minimum requirements set forth by ESMA, and that each country can set forth additional requirements.
How to Perform Hypertagging in the PDF
Hypertagging (block tagging) can be carried out in the PDF version of your annual financial report (visual aspect of the conversion). You can perform hypertagging with any software that allows you to edit PDF files such as InDesign or Adobe Acrobat.
For the purpose of this guide, we’re assuming that you will be editing the PDF file with Adobe Acrobat. If you are using another software, the process may vary from what is described here, but the overall goal remains the same: you want to add hyperlinks to the sections you want to tag.
- Open the PDF version of your annual report;
- Navigate to the page you want to add a block tag to;
- Choose “add a link”;
- Select the text that you want to tag;
- Entering the hyperlink previously selected from the ESEF Hypertag list. It starts out with the prefix pp:// followed by the text from the taxonomy. For instance; pp://disclosure of significant accounting policies. In case you do not have the Excel template updated to its last version, you can find the full list of hypertags in the ESEF tagging template which you can download here;
- Repeat the process for each section you want to block tag;
- Open the Inspector where you can use your credentials to log in to the portal;
- After logging in, select Convert. You need to upload the hypertagged PDF version of your annual report along with the Excel file containing the simplified tags and your financial statements.
- When your report has been successfully converted, you will be redirected to the Viewer tab. From there, you will be able to highlight mapped elements as well as view the entire report.