This Week in XBRL: Next Steps for XBRL

In a continued effort to educate on the development of XBRL technology in industries such as financial services (and beyond), Merrill Corporation will share articles and columns published on the topic.

As the XBRL mandate has been progressing, most of what has been written - both on this blog and in other places - has been focused on staying one or two steps ahead (or reviewing previous steps). This week, we got a breath of fresh air. 

Fierce ComplianceIT put out an article focused on the next set of benchmarks for XBRL filers, now that the last group with a compliance mandate had to file statements after mid-June in the new format.

According to the article:

This is only the beginning of the XBRL era, mind you. We are far from the end given the phased approach the SEC has adopted. In the first year of compliance, companies must tag individual items (dollar values generally) in the primary financial statements, while footnotes and certain financial schedules are individually tagged as blocks of text. In the second year, each amount in the notes and financial schedules must also be tagged. So the process will continue for at least a few years. There may be additional requirement along the way.

The XBRL transition is in that small category of business practices in which just getting started isn't the hardest part. This has caused many to ask, "will it be worth it?" This type of question should be expected, as it would be asked about any mandate in its early stages of being thrust upon an industry. We expect the answer, once a majority of the people feel more comfortable with the new processes, will be yes, especially as the technology and best practices get better developed.

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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.