Printing accounts and iXBRL

Print and preview draft accounts

From the menu bar item Accounts > Preview opens the Preview form.

Select Full or Abbreviated accounts. The latter is visible only for small companies and only if Abbreviated accounts is selected in the Documents and Disclosure form.

The accounts will be marked “DRAFT” or with the message you enter in the text box.

For limited licences, you can print and preview draft accounts any number of times without incurring a use against your limited number.

For companies, Preview does not produce the iXBRL file.

Print and produce final accounts

From the menu bar item Accounts > Prepare opens the Prepare form.

Select Full or Abbreviated accounts. The latter is available only for small companies and only if Abbreviated accounts in selected in the Documents and Disclosure form.

For limited licences, you will incur a count against your limited number the first time you produce accounts from this form for a company for a year. Thereafter you will not incur any further counts for that company until the next year’s accounts.

For companies, Prepare will produce the iXBRL file. By default, a file named ACCOUNTS.html will be saved to the data folder for this company. Use the text box and browse ellipsis button to enter a different destination folder and file name of your choice.

Why do the produced accounts include the text *bad date* ?

The text *bad date* is included when you have not entered a valid date into a required date field in the data entry forms.

Check through your data entry forms and populate any empty date fields.

A common mistake is to enter only one date in the Directors and Shareholders form, which is opened from the menu, Data > Directors.

You must enter two dates in this form:
– Date Directors’ Report was approved by the board
– Date accounts were approved by the board
These are often the same date, but they can be different and must be entered separately.

Why do I see “Group header is too large” message?

The accounts compiled and printed by Comprehensive Accounts contain fixed content and are of fixed format to fit on A4 paper.

This message typically occurs if the printer or PDF printer driver you are using has margins that are too large or has a paper size other than A4 – e.g. “US Legal”.

This is often the case with HP and IBM printers.

The result is usually that some or all of the Directors’ Report or Balance Sheet are not printed.

Check your printer preferences and reduce the size of the margins and ensure the paper size is set to A4.

N.B. This affects only the printed accounts. The iXBRL file will not not be affected by this issue.

Why are my printed accounts spread out over several pages with large spaces between sections?

The accounts compiled and printed by Comprehensive Accounts contain fixed content and are of fixed format to fit on A4 paper.

If the sections in your accounts are spread out over several pages with large spaces between sections, this is typically because the printer settings include margins that are too large or include a paper size other than A4 – e.g. “US Legal”.

This is often the case with HP and IBM printers.

Check the settings on your printer or PDF printer driver and reduce the size of the margins and ensure the paper size is set to A4.

N.B. This affects only the printed accounts. The iXBRL file will not not be affected by this issue.

How do I produce a PDF file?

You must use a PDF printer driver to produce a PDF file of your accounts, for example to email the accounts to your client for approval or to print sections or individual pages.

Depending on your operating system, you might already have a PDF printer driver installed. Check your “Devices and Printers” options or the printers available to you when you print a document.

If you don’t have a PDF printer driver already installed, many are available to download and install from the internet and some of them are free – e.g. http://www.pdf995.com.

Can I print individual pages or sections?

The printed accounts is an integrated report, as all sections, entries, disclosures, notes and page numbers are compiled each time the accounts are printed because their inclusion and content are dependent on the nature of the data in the company database.

This makes it difficult to print any one page or section individually as they are all inter-dependent and, as yet, this is not possible.

To view the accounts without printing the entire document to paper, you can either preview to the screen only or produce a PDF file of the printed accounts from which you can print individual pages or sections.

To preview to screen, tick the “Preview” checkbox in the “Select Output” form when previewing or preparing from the Accounts menu.

Click here to view our support article that explains how you can produce a PDF file

Where is my iXBRL Accounts file?

When you prepare final accounts, by default Comprehensive will save the iXBRL accounts file as a file named ACCOUNTS.html in the data folder of the company for which you are preparing the accounts.

The ACCOUNTS.html file will be in this data location but, depending on your PC configuration, this location might be hidden from your Windows Explorer view.

This is a feature introduced by Microsoft, i.e. not us, with Windows Vista and Windows 7 whereby software applications and their data are saved to two different folders – Program Files and ProgramData – with the latter being hidden from view unless you change some parameters on your PC.

For this reason, in the Prepare form Comprehensive gives you the option either to accept this default or to select your preferred folder destination and file name for the iXBRL accounts file.

In the Prepare form, type the full path including the file name in the text box provided or press the ellipsis button to the right of the text box and search/select the folder and file name with the familiar “Save As” dialog box.

Why is my iXBRL file in HTML format?

iXBRL is a database technology designed to collate, present and transmit business data. HTML is the standard file format used to contain iXBRL data to be displayed or transmitted in web browsers.

So your iXBRL data file is in HTML format, i.e. the file name ends with the file extension .HTML – e.g. accounts.html.

A web search on “What is iXBRL?” will explain further and you might like to read the more detailed answer below.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a standard way of marking up a document so it can be published on the World Wide Web and viewed in a browser. It provides a set of pre-defined tags which describe how content appears in a browser. For example, it describes the font and color of text. It gives little information on meaning or context. XML (Extensible Markup Language) uses tags to identify the meaning, context and structure of data.

XML is a standard language which is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML does not replace HTML; it is a complementary format that is platform independent, allowing XML data to be rendered on any device such as a computer, cell phone, PDA or tablet device. It enables rich, structured data to be delivered in a standard, consistent way. Whereas HTML offers a fixed, pre-defined number of tags, XML neither defines nor limits tags. Instead, XML provides a framework for defining tags (i.e. taxonomy) and the relationship between them (i.e. schema).

XBRL is an XML-based schema that focuses specifically on the requirements of business reporting. XBRL builds upon XML, allowing accountants and regulatory bodies to identify items that are unique to the business reporting environment. The XBRL schema defines how to create XBRL documents and XBRL taxonomies, providing users with a set of business information tags that allows users to identify business information in a consistent way. XBRL is also extensible in that users are able to create their own XBRL taxonomies that define and describe tags unique to a given environment.

iXBRL (in-line Extensible Business Reporting Language) is a further development which will incorporate machine-readable tags alongside legible captions. In the UK, HM Revenue and Customs require corporation tax submissions to use iXBRL for periods ending after 31 March 2010 and filed after 1 April 2011.