What is a digital financial statement?

Financial statements are digital when they are prepared, handled, processed and visualised by machine:

The financial statements are prepared using a standardised structure, known as a taxonomy, and the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (IXBRL).
The file is in web format (XHTML).

Financial statements prepared in accordance with taxonomies enable the financial statement data to be presented in a standardised format and in a specific order. This reduces the risk of essential information being left out of the financial statements. Read more about financial statement taxonomies.

The XHTML file format allows information to be presented in a consistent standard format and in a specific order. The XHTML file format without an underlying structure is not enough to enable the data to be used efficiently. That is why the data must be standardised using the taxonomy and IXBRL.

What are the benefits for the company?

The benefits of digital financial statements for companies include:

Preparing financial statements is faster and easier.
The financial statements are more likely to contain all the information required by law, because the taxonomy determines the structure of the report.
The financial statements do not accidentally include information that does not belong in them, because the content can be verified during filing.
The financial statements are registered faster – on the next working day. This may speed up access to credit ratings and financing, for example.
Reviewing the financial statements does not require Finnish language skills, which can make it easier to obtain foreign financing.

What are the benefits for users of financial statements?

For the user of financial statements, digital financial statements have these benefits:

The information can be used more automatically, because the financial statements do not need to be converted into a structured format.
The quality improves because structured material can be checked; for example, to ensure it contains all the documents required by law.
The information can be handled and further processed efficiently.

What does a digital financial statement look like?

The digital financial statements consist of two parts.

In the human-readable section, the information is presented in text and numbers as usual.

In the machine-readable section, the information is encoded in a language such as XML. This allows systems to process the information more efficiently, even fully automatically.

How do I file financial statements?

Filing digital financial statements is mandatory for sustainability reporting companies and possible for all limited liability companies. Go to the instructions: Digital financial statements of limited liability companies.

Where can I view digital financial statements?

All the financial statement documents submitted to the Finnish Trade Register are public and available, for example, in the PRH’s Virre information service.Avautuu uuteen välilehteen

Application developers can search for digital financial statement information from the PRH’s open data service free of charge. The interface of the open data service contains information on the profit and loss account and balance sheet data of digital financial statements prepared in IXBRL. Go to the PRH open data service.Avautuu uuteen välilehteen