Following three years of voluntary XBRL submissions, the SEC’s mandatory requirements for XBRL financial report submissions began phasing in June 15, 2009. As with any new process, companies can easily underestimate the challenges posed by this complex reporting technology and make mistakes along the way.
This article describes common errors appearing in Voluntary Filing Program (VFP) Forms 10-K that continue to occur under the SEC’s mandatory Form 10-Q submissions and discusses how they can be prevented. CPAs can use this information to develop expectations about the challenges of XBRL document preparation and of performing agreed-upon procedures engagements. It is especially important for companies to be aware of these potential errors, because the errors occur not only in filings prepared in-house, but also in filings prepared by third-party financial printers. Regardless of who prepares the filings, the company is ultimately responsible for the documents’ accuracy.
