WEBINAR NOTICE: Financial Reporting Developments at the SEC – How the emerging use of XBRL will impact your company

On June 12, 2013, XBRL Canada will be holding a Webinar focusing on the role of XBRL at the SEC, and the implications for listed companies, including Canadian “foreign filers”. It will be presented by Virginia Meany - who is Assistant Director in the Division of Risk Management and Financial Analysis at the SEC and responsible for the Interactive Data program,  and Kimberly Earle - Associate Chief Accountant in the Office of Interactive Data and Matthew Slavin - IT Program Manager also from the Office of Interactive Data.

The Webinar will feature discussion on the following;

• status of the current rules regarding filing of interactive data; 
• key issues - including filer challenges and quality concerns; 
• update on the IFRS taxonomy and emerging software tools. 

Other important topics include the Accounting Quality Model (which the press has dubbed “Robocop”) and the considerations relating to adoption of Inline XBRL. There will be time for questions and comments.

Mark your calendars now for Wednesday, June 12 at 12:30 PM Eastern Time.

Further details will be released soon.

XBRL Canada is funded and supported by CPA Canada.

Data Monetization

Freely transportable and usable data is becoming an increasingly important and valuable commodity in business. The advent of data monetization has provided an economic framework to guide the collection and use of data and offers a basis for its valuation. Data can be monetized through its sale for cash, for other data, or for other monetized assets. Certainly one of the major value components of data is its transportability and platform independence, which makes its more readily usable for its intended purposes. Here's a recent article on the subject.

XBRL a Growing Force Around the World

A recent presentation at the XBRL International Conference in Dublin highlighted major implementations of XBRL in numerous countries. The data provides striking evidence of the growing role of XBRL around the world, particularly in its use by governments and regulators.

The data represents implemented projects during 2013 and shows 1.6 million filings with HMRC and 1.1 million with Companies House in the UK. Also, there were 1 million filings each with Bundesbank in Germany and with Infocamere in Italy. In the sphere of SBR, thee are new projects in Finland, Norway, Ireland and Denmark. And that's just in Europe! Other data on other parts of the world show significant filings in Shanghai, Japan and India, among others.

Securities and financial regulators account for 47% of the filings, with the remaining attributable to bank regulators, business registers, SBR and Tax regulators.

It's an impressive record and one that shows just how very important XBRL has become on the world stage. Here's the presentation.

Presentations for the Dublin XBRL International Conference are now Online

The Dublin conference was an excellent one, with numerous outstanding and informative presentations. They are now online at the XBRL International website. Definitely worth a look.

How to Use XBRL Data - Part 1

Mike Willis prepared this list which is of great interest to anyone who wishes to take part in the growing trend to make use of the XBRL data which is available
• There are a number of applications that may be useful to those looking to consume and analyze XBRL data; however, these applications may not meet the needs of all. It may be useful to share with software vendors your thoughts on how to enhance the use of XBRL for analytical purposes. Surprisingly, few customers or potential customers actually share their thoughts or provide feedback to software vendors. As a result, those that do are highly valued by software vendors; so please share your thoughts and ideas with software vendors.

That said, if you want to pull XBRL data into Excel? Try
Hitachi Xinba http://www.hitachiconsulting.com/xbrl/products.cfm or
Rivet Crossfire http://rivetsoftware.com/solutions/crossfire/ or
Altova MapForce http://www.altova.com/mapforce/xbrl-mapping.html or
Fujitsu XWand http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/software/interstage/solutions/xbrl/
and I am certain there are others.

There are also some useful XBRL analytical applications available including:
BlueMatrix Researchware
https://www.bluematrix.com/www2/Apps.action;jsessionid=A225AEF4EB1FF829D1CA288036CBEE20?researchware=
EDGAR Online’s Imetrix
http://i-metrix.edgar-online.com/
Rivet Crossfire
http://rivetsoftware.com/xbrl-solutions/interactive-reporting/
XBRL US Consistency Suite
http://xbrl.us/csuite
Arelle (Open source) http://www.arelle.org/
LogixData SEC Analyzer
http://www.logixdata.com/sec-analyzerhttp://www.9wsearch.com/
RS Regulator Portal
http://www.xbrl4.org/regulators/index.html
XBRL Data in Use
http://xbrl.us/research/pages/data.htm
Calcbench (Open source) http://www.calcbench.com/
XBRL US Brix (Open source) http://xbrl.us/research/pages/iphone.aspx
and I am certain there are others.                      

The SEC's New "Robocop"

In a resounding answer to the critics who state that the SEC is not making use of the XBRL data it is collecting, that agency has recently announced a new "Robocop", which is an electronic too designed to trigger alarms when the data being filed indicates suspicious accounting.

The new tool will be made possible by using the XBRL data being filed with them. For a report on  this important event, check this link. The article being referred to does state that a similar approach is being taken in Canada, but that part is not true, since the Canadian regulators do not require XBRL filings.

SBR in Finland

XBRL Finland has published the first draft of its SBR Taxonomy for public review and comment. The taxonomy covers financial statement reporting, tax reporting and statistics reporting by limited companies, cooperatives, partnerships, limited partnerships and sole proprietors. For the taxonomy, click here..