FRC launches digital reporting Viewer

On 10 March 2025, the Financial Reporting Council (the “FRC”) announced the public beta launch of its digital reporting Viewer.

The release of the Viewer is part of the FRC’s work to encourage companies to move away from paper reporting (a position supported by other UK regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority, Companies House, HMRC and the Charity Commission) and it marks a significant step forward in company reporting in the UK.

Whilst a significant proportion of companies’ accounts are published in iXBRL format (88% of those filed with Companies House and all of those filed with the Financial Conduct Authority), the Viewer will allow this wealth of data to be unlocked and readily analysed by interested parties from investors and advisors to fellow businesses and the general public. For example by looking at a company’s annual report through the Viewer, you can very quickly be directed to key pieces of information such as the net current asset position or the average number of employees in the period.

To help users find their way around the new platform, the FRC have released a video to explain how the Viewer works as well as a helpful User Guide.

Given this is a beta launch, the FRC are also very keen to receive comments from users to assist with further developments and improvements to this service. Please send any comments to [email protected].

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised above or any other aspect of your corporate financial reporting, please get in touch with your usual Burges Salmon contact or Nick Graves, Head of the Corporate Department.

It’s essential that we have a very effective data ecosystem to ensure that data is accessible and transparent to a very wide audience at a very low cost and that is exactly what the iXBRL Viewer does." Jennifer Guest, Head of Taxonomies, The Financial Reporting Council.