XBRL for Mutual Funds – Filing and Publishing Considerations (Part 2)

We are 51 days away from the effective date of the XBRL ruling – requiring all open-end mutual funds to file the Risk/Return Summary section in XBRL format as an exhibit, as well as publish the XBRL files to the fund’s website (when one exists).

This week, we will continue our discussion of the functional steps of XBRL by including Part Two of the filing and publishing steps. Remember, until you file or publish your XBRL-tagged data, it does not exist to the SEC. So, this article will focus on these important final steps in the process.

 

As we have mentioned in previous blog posts, the XBRL data is not intended for humans to read. However, because it will be important to share information with your investors, having different publishing options becomes more important.

 

For this reason, the Merrill XBRL Complete product has incorporated into it three different publishing options to fit how you want to publish and share this information with your investors.

• Option 1: A simple publish of the XBRL data to your fund’s website. 

You can stop there as this is the only requirement of the ruling. However, a number of funds are interested in taking extra steps to ensure that their investors understand what is included in the XBRL-tagged file, so that leads us to ...

• Option 2: A simple publish the XBRL-tagged data to your fund's website, as well as an HTML-rendering of that data so your investors can have a human-readable version of only the data included in the XBRL file. 

However, in order to harness the true power of XBRL to the advantage of your investors, we have...

• Option 3: A viewer that is similar to the SEC's Interactive Risk & Return Summary Report Viewer, but with a special twist. Instead of the SEC’s branding at the top of the website, it will contain your logo, branding, colors, etc. In addition, it will be anchored to your fund’s website so that your investors remain within your site (as opposed to navigating away to the SEC or other site). Further, your investors will be able to do side-by-side comparisons of only your funds or compare your funds against the entire universe of funds.

No matter which option you choose, because of the automated, systematic approach we have developed, the XBRL-tagged data will be published within the “same day” that it is filed with the SEC.

As we have said previously, maintaining compliance with respect to XBRL will be one part technology, one part process and one part human expertise. This is why we have developed not only a XBRL-solution based on solid technology and processes, but also the Merrill Compliance Services Team to navigate funds through the compliance waters, from the discovery process through “going live."

As always, our overall message is that the time to prepare is now. Don’t be caught off guard and start the on-boarding process approximately 30-45 days before the beginning of the year. This will allow you to understand your tagging and publishing needs well in advance to make the proper business decision. Being prepared is the key to a successful transition to XBRL.

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Merrill Corporation is proud to offer XBRL Complete, a suite of services that meets - and has options to exceed – the mandated requirements for XBRL for mutual funds. For more information, please click here or call 866-367-9110.