IRIS steps in to rescue customers left stranded by Sage’s failure to meet HMRC April 1st “mandation date” for iXBRL

Sage Customers Urged to Call the IRIS iXBRL Emergency Help Line on 0844 815 5555

Datchet, U.K. – 21 January 2011 – IRIS Accountancy Practice Solutions is stepping in to assist those Sage customers left stranded by yesterday’s news that Sage has delayed the release of its updated iXBRL software until after the mandatory HM Revenue & Customs deadline.

HMRC has mandated that from 1st April all corporation tax computations and accounts must be filed online using the new iXBRL format. While Sage has said it will have a basic iXBRL "template" available before the deadline, the full release of its Accountancy products will not be made available in time. This leaves its customers, both accountancy practices and corporates, in danger of penalties from HMRC for late filing of returns.

IRIS is introducing an “iXBRL Guarantee” for Sage Accountancy customers, who will be impacted by Sage’s failure to fully support iXBRL in time for the HMRC mandation date of 1st April. The iXBRL Guarantee ensures that no accountancy practices will be left behind in the change to this new legislative standard. Running from today up until the 1st April deadline, Sage Accounts Production and Sage Accounts Production Advanced (SAPA) customers can receive a free migration service on to IRIS market leading iXBRL compliant products, they will also receive free training, to ensure immediate iXBRL readiness.

In recent customer surveys Accountancy Practices migrating to IRIS report a 23 hour per person per month productivity gain once IRIS is deployed.

Phill Robinson, Managing Director, IRIS Accountancy Practice Solutions, said: “It appears that Sage will have left large numbers of accountancy practices and their clients in the lurch with only ten weeks to go until the mandation date. We have continually led the way in terms of iXBRL, having been compliant since April 2010 for Tax and November 2010 for Accounts Production. I would say to Sage customers that there is still time to be ready for 1st April and urge them to call us to find out how we can help them and make the transition as smooth as possible over the coming days and weeks.”

Since the introduction of the IRIS “iXBRL engine”, that has been deployed in IRIS, PTP & Drummohr Tax products since April 2010, and IRIS & PTP Accounts since November 2010, IRIS customers have embraced the capability whole heartedly. Customers using IRIS products represent almost 50% of all CT600 online filings, to the end of December 2010, 255,000 CT 600 returns have been filed online with HMRC using IRIS products, with over 58% delivered with iXBRL format accounts or computations. This puts IRIS and its customers way ahead of the rest of the market; tellingly, no other major software vendor has published its filing statistics for iXBRL.

As part of the iXBRL Guarantee, Sage customers are also invited to attend IRIS’s upcoming series of Seminars, that will focus on iXBRL readiness in Practice. This is an ideal opportunity for Sage customers to talk to existing IRIS users about how complete and comprehensive the IRIS solution is. Seminars take place on the following dates in venues all over the UK:

Newport - Celtic Manor   1st March
East Midlands - Hilton East Midlands   2nd March
Edinburgh - Marriott Dalmahoy   3rd March
London – Marriott, County Hall   8th March
Southampton - Chilworth Manor   9th March
Belfast - Hastings Stormont   9th March
North West - Haydock Park   10th March
Cambridge - Downing College   16th March
Durham - Radisson Blu Hotel   17th March

For more information or to register for one of the seminars, visit www.iris.co.uk/ixbrlevents