The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) is looking to ease that burden. It has published IPSAS Exposure Draft (ED) 94, Linkages Between IPSAS Standards and the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (Amendments to IPSAS 22), and is inviting comments until 22 June 2026.

IPSASB Chair Thomas Müller-Marqués Berger said the guidance ‘will help governments leverage the independently audited accounting data that is already available in their systems for statistical compilation, enhancing the overall data quality and the efficiency of their statistical reporting process.”

When reporting frameworks are aligned, high-quality data can be reused rather than recreated. Data portability is one of the great strengths of structured, digital data, which, thanks to the information inherent in digital tagging, can be reused instead of rekeyed.
Securities regulators, financial regulators, business registrars, tax authorities and others have seen huge benefits from XBRL mandates. They deliver consistent, easily consumable digital reports for regulators and markets alike. But government reporting has lagged. These alignment measures could be the nudge public-sector estates need to modernise fiscal reporting. XBRL International would be delighted to discuss practical options and approaches. From:

• enhancing and helping to automate aspects of assurance and audit, to

• providing decision makers at all levels in government with faster, more consistent and more reliable information, to

• creating automated bridges from fiscal reports to international reports.