The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, today published the update of its Reporting Manual on the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) supporting a harmonised approach for the preparation of annual financial reports. ESMA has also updated the Annex II of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on ESEF.

The updated Manual provides technical improvements and guidance to facilitate the analysis and comparison of the data, such as:

recommendations when tagging empty fields or dash symbols;

clarifying that extension elements should be anchored to core elements sharing the same data type;

advising on practices to further improve the readability of the information extracted from a block tag; and,

encouraging the use of unique identifiers for each tagged fact.

The Manual intends to promote a harmonised and consistent approach for the preparation of annual financial reports in the format specified in the RTS on ESEF, providing guidance on common issues that may be encountered when creating ESEF documents, and explaining how to address them.