XBRL for Mutual Funds: How did it go?

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) - has passed with very little fanfare.

While some have listed the XBRL mandate as one of the top tech stories of the year, it is difficult to determine whether the few public articles and reports is due to the lack of an interesting story or because organizations are keeping their process hush-hush for now. With approximately 8,700 companies providing XBRL for the first time this year, there would seemingly be something to share. (As a consolation, we can report that those utilizing the XBRL Complete have been very satisfied with the transition, both in the technology and expertise the  Merrill Compliance Services Team has to navigate funds through the compliance waters, from the discovery process through “going live.")

Because nothing has been reported yet, we would like to make a suggestion as the first story or the first series of stories. In May 2010, the consultant-group Grant Thornton surveyed 496 CFOs and senior comptrollers from across the country about their plans for implementing XBRL. The results indicated that:

• 64 percent of public companies did not report financial results using XBRL at the time. 
• Of those, half had no plans to meet the 2011 deadline to report using interactive data. 

Many of those companies likely developed those plans during the summer or later (we reported in this blog series that organization had until about 30-45 days before the new year to properly plan) but we would like to know how the process ended up for them. Did they meet the mandate? Were they rushed? Was it a simple process? Did they handle it in-house or outsource it? Have they see any benefits?

The XBRL mandate story is not over yet, it is simply switching from the planning process to implementation. 

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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.