There were a lot of plans and ideas that are not implemented for various reasons:

• I wanted to start a process of XBRL adoption in the local area and to convey the experience of it through the blog posts – No Understanding.
• I planned to interview more important persons from this field; also my idea was to expand the site content with the articles about Semantic Web – No Time.
• I planned to visit some important conferences and events and meet with important people in this area – No Money.

And then I decided to stop.

It’s time for me to dedicate more time and energy to my family, and to work on things that can provide us a source of livelihood.

So I’m going another way than XBRL.

Thank you all,
Ilija

I was reminded of this by the impending release of GRC-XML. Comprehensive Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) often depends on knitting together a bunch of ’silo’ tools and applications to cover a diverse range of  needs, especially in multinational corporations subject to all kinds of constantly evolving regulatory controls. But like many software use-domains, including ERP and CRM, GRC has no standard mechanism for data-interchange.

Arguably data interchange standards have hardly moved on much since ASCII – today’s most widely used data interchange formats are essentially text files. The problem with text files is that anything goes. There’s no inherent logic to them. That’s why XML/XBRL is in fact ideal for use as a data-interchange standard because the data is ‘defined by’ an agreed taxonomy, a key element missing from text-based data interchange.

While the key driver for XBRL has been as a means for standardizing financial reporting, it may be that the real action in the future is in the development of a series of taxonomy-driven data interchange standards across a wide variety of use-domains, bringing all the silos together in a Hollywood-style happy ending.

Share your thoughts: http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/04/16/xbrl-for-silos/

Fortunately, the first Austin Powers film (International Man of Mystery) included a simple introduction to the concept of XML. In one scene Liz Hurley’s character revealed the contents of her suitcase. The most exciting thing about this (from the IT viewpoint) was that, not only were all the individual items of clothing in their own plastic bags, but each bag was labelled. This is the essence of XML. Each item of data is individually wrapped and given a label. This means that the information can not only be displayed in a browser like any HTML file, but can also be read directly by a computer application.

Maybe that’s what’s needed to galvanize the next XBRL conference in Rome. Ms. Hurley revealing the contents of her suitcase and reminding us of what is, after all, the real essence of what XML/XBRL is about: A nice pair of tags. Then rounding this off by introducing her new XML-inspired fragrance, offering the latest in full-on olefactory transparency: XScent (and its UK-only version iXScent).

Share your thoughts: http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/04/13/sock-one-and-sock-too/

“The way I approach it, and have collective agreement among the key leaders among leaders at Treasury, OMB, and other critical parties that are thinking about this, is that XBRL is the second question to ask.” (see Federal News Radio)

This isn’t what Werfel was alluding to above, but I agree that XBRL has become the second question to ask and for me the first question, especially for XBRL software vendors like us, has become: Now it’s gaining momentum, how are we going to leverage it?

Once you have financial, and other data, tagged in XBRL what are you going to do with it – apart from the obvious stuff like render it to look like a financial statement, compare and contrast like-for-like, taxonomy-based data and benchmark peer groups? Well understanding XBRL from a different perspective is always helpful. Think of XBRL as yet another eventstream. Every XBRL tag that is ‘reported’ electronically by a business is like a Twitter Tweet or a Facebook Poke. A tiny fragment of the lifestream of an organization, conveniently categorized for data mining and analysis based on an agreed taxonomy.

Now many XBRL-tagged data items are not that interesting on their own or even collectively. But there are subsets of tags that are relevant depending on what you are monitoring the eventstream for. If you are looking for evidence of regulatory compliance or fraud for example, or financial investment opportunities or examples of good practice. That’s where I see the focus of XBRL applications going in the near future. Beyond rendering and comparing and towards XBRL eventstream mining that leverages outcome-focused tag ‘currents’.

Imagine if corporations presented another view of their financial information. Not as reports – that they organize and present, to represent their ‘framing’ of their results in a specific way to suit a specific purpose – but as Twitter-like, tag-based event streams. A bottom-up (data element) framing of XBRL rather than the current top-down (rendered report) framing. In Twitter you search for events in the stream by looking for terms that have been ‘hash’ tagged e.g. #XBRL. Applying the same paradigm to the XBRL eventstream lets us search the corporate lifestream in much the same way e.g. #revenue to see all revenue tagged events. Then this substream can be analyzed in specific ways, maybe just to provide a chart of revenue trend over time or maybe to look for rule-based exceptions in the eventstream.

Now imagine that subsetted collections of tags, here I’ll call them ‘currents’ to go with the stream metaphor, can also be searched in order to narrow the search in an outcome-driven way e.g. #currentname. Then you have an even more powerful basis for mining the XBRL eventstream – something that helps to provide even better ‘cabling’ if we refer back to Werfel’s original analogy.

Share your thoughts: http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/04/06/the-xbrl-eventstream/

Imagine saying that something is easy and will improve transparency, yet then not using it yourself. Wow, imagine already being required to provide all that information in another format, lets say an IRS Form 990, yet not even bothering to provide the same information in the standard that you create. Not even to prove that you can.

Come on guys, we keep telling the markets that XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) will deliver significant business reporting benefits to the creators of the reports, and to the consumers of the reports in XBRL. How long will it be before the markets question the validity of our assertions that this will improve business reporting efficiency, effectiveness, quality and speed, if two of the key groups advocating for XBRL do not (cannot?) even do it themselves?

The last time XII produced their financial statement in XBRL was for the 2004 results. So, did XII find it too difficult? I hope not; it is their standard. XBRL US inc has never published their results in XBRL. And doing it once, they can both look forward to an easy second, third etc round of XBRL creation, needing to do little more than change the contexts and the numbers next time.

Isn’t it time that XBRL International (XII) and XBRL US inc (XUS) actually ate their own dog food?

Since my original post about valuation and its impact on XBRL submissions, there has been additional discussion and detail brought to light that I think warrants a revisit.  The good news is that the “falling out of a Group”/deceleration discussion I had in my original post is still true.  The bad news, on the other hand (and trust me…it’s pretty bad), is for some companies that accelerate.

What’s important to keep in mind through all of this is that the SEC is running the Interactive Data mandate consistent with as much as what’s already in place as they possibly can.  I say this as the discussion that follows is based on the following general principle:

A company’s XBRL filing status (and specific to XBRL, valuation determination) is the same as the determination for general filing status and is effective upon notice to the SEC, thus (mostly) driving “what happens next” in terms of acceleration/deceleration and XBRL submissions.

Reinforcing this concept is C&DI 105.06, whose purpose is to drive home the fact that “intra-year” valuation changes do not impact XBRL Group status (as they don’t impact general filing status either).  My original post had an open item around 105.06, but there really isn’t any.  The only valuation date important for XBRL Group determination is the same as determining filing status to the SEC.  Period.

With this in mind, let’s get started with DECELERATION.  Not too much new to report other than a reinforcement of the effectiveness of the deceleration.  Assuming a 12/31 fiscal year-end company drops valuation-wise from Group 1 to Group 2, the effectiveness of the drop is as of 12/31…which means that the company does not have to provide XBRL for their 12/31 or 3/31 submissions.  Some Group 1 companies that saw their valuation fall below $5bln still submitted XBRL documents for 12/31 when they didn’t have to.  Regardless, they don’t have to submit 3/31 XBRL documents either, should they so choose.

As for ACCELERATION, the basic premise in my original post still holds true but there does exist a “gotcha” situation.  To better understand the situation, let’s get two key Final Rule components on the table that come into play:

1. A company’s very first XBRL submission, regardless of acceleration, MUST always be a 10-Q
2. Pages 179-180 (back in the geeky legalese section) defines what a company may submit before June 15 of each mandated start period as well as what a company MUST submit for financial statements related to data on/after June 15

To understand how these two key components move in conjunction with the general principle stated above, let’s first take a 6/30 fiscal year-end company not yet in the mandate that sees its 12/31/2009 valuation grow to over $5bln.  Since the company has yet to file XBRL, the company is NOT required to submit Year 2/detail Notes tagging for its 6/30/2010 10-K.  Even though the general principle (effective when reported) in conjunction with Final Rule pages 179-180 would make it seem as such, the key is that they have previously not been required to submit XBRL and as such, they do not join the mandate (i.e., do their first filing) on a 10-K.  Effectively the company receives a complementary “get out of tagging jail” card for the 10-K, but the company’s 9/30 10-Q XBRL submission MUST be based on Year 2 tagging requirements.

Now that we’ve got the “first submission” aspect as it relates to ACCELERATION out of the way, let’s talk about beyond first submission.  In this example, let’s assume a 12/31 fiscal year-end company that was originally in Group 1 (i.e., 6/30/2008 valuation > $5bln), moved to Group 2 (i.e., 6/30/2009 valuation < $5bln), but then expects to be back in Group 1 (i.e., projected 6/30/2010 valuation > $5bln).  In this situation, the company would forgo having to provide an XBRL submission based on Year 2 tagging requirements for 6/30/2010 and 9/30/2010 since they are officially a Group 2 company.  However, for the 12/31/2010 10-K, the company MUST provide XBRL documents based on Year 2 tagging requirements since:

1. This is not the company’s first XBRL submission
2. The move back into Group 1 is effective upon notice to SEC
3. Pages 179-180 dictate what must be submitted for post-June 15 report data

Lots of moving parts when it comes to ACCELERATION but in both cases, the company wins a little and loses a little.  What’s important is to go into the XBRL mandate valuation changes with eyes wide open around these key aspects and not get caught off-guard.

- Rob

As the iXBRL will be required, it seems to me that there would be little additional effort required to make those iXBRL versions of financial statements available on company websites.

One of the benefits of XBRL is the ability to directly consume the information into computer systems to avoid manual re-keying. This is particularly important if a company wants the analyst community to either cover the company, or at a minimum to include the company as a comparator to a covered company. Any need to re-key information would impose time and error costs on analysts, and will ‘de-select’ that company from the list of comparators, if it is possible to simply import the information provided by another company in the same industry segment.

Therefore, while there is no requirement for companies to post their iXBRL financials on their website (the SEC requires companies providing XBRL to the SEC to also post the XBRL files on their website), to do so is both simple and provides the investor community with additional information, quickly and at almost no additional cost to the company.

What a great opportunity for UK (LSE and AIM) listed companies to get their message out. Don’t put the iXBRL in the logical desk drawer, post the iXBRL financial statements on the company website.

Share your thoughts: http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/04/01/well-can-it/

The purpose of this research was to conduct a questionnaire survey of accountants in UK listed companies (FTSE All Share), external auditors, tax practitioners and representatives of the investment management and analyst communities to investigate their views on how the development of second-generation digital reporting in general, and XBRL in particular, could affect the future of the business reporting and analysis process.

The resulting 65-page report XBRL: The Views of Stakeholders (admittedly based on only 153 responses) is nevertheless a substantial and useful addition to the XBRL body of knowledge, yet the key finding - The business case for organisations to adopt XBRL needs to be made more visible – will not be surprising to many in the XBRL world.

Share your thoughts: http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/04/01/xbrl-the-views-of-stakeholders/