In simplest of terms Form AOC4 – XBRL is a medium of filing XBRL documents with regard to financial statements and other official documents with a government authorized registrar. The term XBRL itself stands for “extensible business reporting language”. With various looming issues surrounding filing procedures by large companies, there were many steps taken by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to harmonize the whole procedure. These efforts took shape in what came to be the Companies (Filing of documents & Forms in Extensible Business Reporting Language) Rules of 2015.
File financial statements and other legal documentation
As per Rule 3 of the said notification, there exists a list of a class of companies who are required to file their financial statements and other legal documentation under section 137 of the said Act, via the medium of Form AOC4 – XBRL. Below mentioned are the classes of companies that are mentioned in the Rule.
- All companies publicly listed in Indian Stock Exchanges and their subsidiaries
- All companies that have a paid-up capital of 5 crores or more
- All companies that have a turnover of a hundred crores or more
- All companies that were covered by default under the Companies (Filing of Documents & Forms in Extensible Business Reporting Language) Rules, 2011
Companies (Filing of Documents & Forms in Extensible Business Reporting Language) Rules
Hence as implied, all companies coming under the Companies (Filing of Documents & Forms in Extensible Business Reporting Language) Rules,1 shall be required to file their financial statements and other legal documents in e-form via the Form AOC-4 XBRL. The rest of the companies, however, may continue filing their statements via forms AOC-4 and AOC-4 CFS as already practiced.
Form AOC-4 CFS, on the other hand, is also an e-form that is used to prepare consolidated financial statements pursuant to the Companies Act. 2 As per Rule 12(1) of the Company (Accounts) Rules 2014, companies that have one or more subsidies both within and outside India, are required to file AOC-4 and AOC-4 CFS with regard to their financial statements and consolidated financial statements respectively.
Exemption for certain types or classes of companies
However, as per the provisions of Rule 3, certain types or classes of companies are exempt from having to undergo the XBRL filing procedure. These include firms or companies in banking, insurance, non-banking financial firms, power sector companies or housing finance-related firms.
Download the sample PDFs – Instruction Kit for AOC-4-XBRL
In terms of the steps to fill out the Form, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has made available sample PDFs of the form and instruction manuals to fill out the document correctly through their website. 3 Some of the important fields that are required to be filled out in the form include the following – 4
_______________
1.Companies (Filing of Documents & Forms in Extensible Business Reporting Language) Rules of 2015 – mca.gov.in
2. The Companies Act,2013 – Act No.18 of 2013
3. Instruction Kit for AOC-4-XBRL – mca.gov.in
4. The numbering in this article does not reflect the original numbering scheme of the instruction kit. It has been abridged for the reader’s convenience.
- Corporate Identity Number (CIN)
- Financial Year to which the financial statements relate
- Nature of the financial statements
- Nature of revision
- Whether the company holds Annual General Meetings
- If Schedule 3 of the Companies Act, 2013 is applicable
- Type of Industry
- Whether consolidated statements are required or not
- Comments of the Comptroller Auditor General of India in the case of government companies
- Whether Secretarial Audit is applicable
- Details of Specific Bank Notes (SBN)
In terms of recent developments around Form AOC-4 – XBRL, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has extended the last date of filing of the same pursuant to the Companies Act, 2013 without the requirement of additional fees. The last date for filing in most cases used to be 31st May and was going to be the same in 2018. However, in the early weeks of May, according to official notifications from the government, the last date for filing the AOC-4-XBRL form has been extended, after the consideration of requests received from the stakeholders of multiple companies. 5
There have also been notifications that the extension of date shall be applicable for all companies that are required to prepare their financial statements in accordance with Companies (Indian Accounting Standards) Rules, 2015 for the financial year 2016-2017, without the requirement of any further additional fees till 31st May of 2018.
_______________
5. Ministry of Corporate Affairs extends AOC-4 filing due date up to 31st May 2018 – knnindia.co.in
