Roles and Responsibilities

The IASC Foundation Translation Manager is the initial point of contact for all individuals or organisations who wish to undertake a translation of the IFRS taxonomy labels. The Manager explains the IASC Foundation translation process, supplies the reference data (IFRS Key Terms list and existing IFRS translations, if available), provides advice on translation software and best translation practices, and receives translation comments during the translated labels’ public exposure period. These comments are then forwarded to the Coordinator for evaluation and implementation.

The IASC Foundation Contracts Coordinator and the IASC Foundation Director of Operations deal with Intellectual Property and other contract issues.

The IASC Foundation XBRL Team builds and publishes the label linkbase and the label viewer. They supply the XBRL IFRS label file in Excel for translation and they maintain the IASC Foundation XBRL website. The IASC Foundation XBRL Team maintains the label linkbase construction format and supporting documentation.

The Translation Coordinator is usually a person from the relevant XBRL jurisdiction; in the absence of an XBRL jurisdiction in some countries, the Coordinator can also be a representative of a professional body or a private corporation, with a good record of involvement in the IFRSs and XBRL. The Coordinator is responsible for the smooth running of the process, the exchange of files and comments between the Reviewer(s) and the translator, and ensuring that any comments received during the public exposure period are sent to the Reviewers for evaluation and implementation. On some occasions, the Coordinator and the Reviewer can be the same person.

There can be either one or a small team of Reviewers . They need to be native speakers of the language in question with a good knowledge of English and are usually experts in IFRS and XBRL. If a language is spoken in more than one country, then the review should include representatives from all countries concerned, where possible. Members may not share and shall ensure that no third party has access to IASB or IASC Foundation data and information which is made available to them in confidence, or which is copyrighted.

The purpose of the review is to ensure the accuracy of the translated text compared with the English original. The purpose of the translation is not to interpret or explain the labels, but merely to render the meaning of the English text in another language, consistently with the terminology already used in IFRS translations. Consequently, Reviewers may not add, reduce or alter in any way the substance and structure of the labels, or the consistency in their translation. If comments on the translation are received during the public exposure period, the reviewers decide if they represent genuine improvement to the translation, and if they should be incorporated in the labels.

There can be either one or a group of Translators working on each language. They work directly with the Translation Coordinator, and are responsible for using the Key Terms list and other IFRS reference data consistently throughout the translation process, highlighting content issues and inserting Reviewers’ comments. They can be either professional translators or accounting professionals with translation experience. They should use Translation Memory databases and approved electronic dictionaries to help ensure further consistency in translation.