The last frontier - going transparent with XBRL reporting for Sub-Saharan African listed firms

The dearth of studies in sub-Saharan Africa on how eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) enhances disclosure quality necessitated this study. Thus, this study aims to provide an overview of XBRL in the financial reporting space of sub-Saharan Africa-listed firms. This study discusses the evolution of corporate financial reporting and relates it to how business reporting software enhances the quality of information disclosure and transparency. Based on previous studies, we assessed XBRL in its format for reporting and cost implications from a global perspective. The findings indicated that by reporting using XBRL, we make the case for opening up sub-Saharan African investment markets and improving corporate governance quality in the global investors’ view. In other words, listed firms in the sub-region currently have a periodic and manual reporting approach to financial reporting, which makes it quite difficult for investors to have an up-to-the-minute view of the listed firms for investment purposes. Researchers and business firms need to understand the availability of XBRL technology and its application to enable voluntary corporate disclosures. In addition to the information disclosed, it is important for their search to determine how the software employs information in financial reporting. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the few in Africa, especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa exchanges, to use the review to understand how prior studies involved XBRL reporting to enhance the transparency of listed firms.