The Cloud Report is a validation tool created by a third party to assist with the XBRL filing process. In fact, some printers use this tool as their validation tool for their XBRL clients. Rivet currently uses its own proprietary tool to perform this function and does not rely on a third party for its validation.

Earlier last week I had the pleasure of spending some time (over the phone) with David Blaszkowsky, Director of the SEC’s Office of Interactive Disclosure. We covered a number of issues, too much in fact to put into a single article, so there will be more from David over the coming weeks.

The Office of Interactive Disclosure (OID) carries the heavy responsibility of implementing the SEC’s Interactive Data rules for GAAP for public companies, for mutual funds and for ratings (links and names), and in the minds of many observers of XBRL’s progress around the world, holds the key to demonstrating the real value for XBRL for public financial reporting generally…

The SEC is allowing companies to ease into compliance, laying out a two-phase mandate. During the first year, only the face of the financials must be tagged with XBRL, necessitating anywhere from 300 to 500 discrete XBRL tags. But in year two, that number increases almost exponentially, requiring anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 discrete tags, depending upon your unique business environment.

The SEC’s original estimate of 125 hours for the face financials seems well in line with the results in the survey. The interesting thing is that the SEC estimates were based on actual participants in the Voluntary Filing Program. So it appears that when the SEC relies on the experience of real companies to estimate the costs, they got it pretty close (the time effort at least).

The S.E.C recently updated its staff observations from their initial review of XBRL filings here.The observations address a number of issues relating to the body of filings examined by S.E.C. staff

As previously reported, the 2009 US GAAP Taxonomies are referenced back to the now out of date US GAAP hierarchy. XBRL US, the non-profit consortium that supports the implementation of XBRL in the United States through the development of taxonomies relevant for use by US public and private sectors, published a Taxonomy Extension that points to the US GAAP Codification.

It’s filing season and quarterly reports are flowing into the SEC in the newly mandated XBRL format, which is computer readable. How is it going? No major complaints, though a couple of issues have understandably surfaced for companies filing for the first time in this format.

XBRL US is conducting in-person training workshops to teach preparers how to create XBRL filings for submission to the SEC. This hands-on session shows you how to use taxonomies, convert your primary financial statements and block tag your footnotes in XBRL format.

The objectives of the study are: (1) to provide an overview of the benefits and global development of XBRL and (2) to evaluate the extent of XBRL adoption following the implementation of the voluntary filing program.