Del DeVries : XBR Lpre 2008-05

XBRL roll out

XBRL is gaining momentum. In April, I commented on the XBRL test project - TryXBRL. Last week, the required implementation of XBRL (as expected) is another step closer with the SEC unanimously approving to formally propose XBRL (i.e., a pre-rule meeting).

Washington, D.C., May 14, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted unanimously to formally propose using new technology to get important information to investors faster, more reliably, and at a lower cost.

At the center of the SEC proposal is "interactive data" — computer "tags" similar in function to bar codes used to identify groceries and shipped packages. The interactive data tags uniquely identify individual items in a company's financial statement so they can be easily searched on the Internet, downloaded into spreadsheets, reorganized in databases, and put to any number of other comparative and analytical uses by investors, analysts, and journalists.

The proposed rule would require all U.S. companies to provide financial information using interactive data beginning next year for the largest companies, and within three years for all public companies.

The proposed schedule for requiring XBRL is roughly:

The 500 largest companies (US GAAP with float > $5 bil) for fiscal periods ending in late 2008 (data available in early 2009)
Midcap firms for fiscal periods ending in late 2009
Smallcap and foreign firms for fiscal periods ending in late 2010
IASB companies would have until fiscal periods ending in late 2010

The required tagged disclosures would include companies' primary financial statements, notes, and financial statement schedules. Initially, companies would tag notes and schedules as blocks of text, and a year later, they would provide tags for the details within the notes and schedules.

Companies filing under the proposed rule that use U.S. GAAP will use upgraded data tags issued April 28, 2008, by XBRL US, Inc.

More information is available at http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl.shtml

_2008-05-19

Tags: XBRL - Accounting

Back to BlogNotes-May2008

Earlier posting I made about an XBRL test: http://forum.belmont.edu/business/2008/04/try_xbrl_what_language_is_xbrl.html

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