Standard Business Reporting in the US
Gerald Trites

On May 13th, Bill HR 2392 was introduced into the US House of Representatives. The purpose of the bill is "To improve the effectiveness of the Government’s collection, analysis, and dissemination of business information by using modern interactive data technologies." The act would establish a process of standardizing the collection, analysis and dissemination of information using XBRL. The act calls for periodic updates on the progress being achieved.

This is a strong initiative by the US government and will have a major impact on the use of XBRL and will be of immense benefit to all companies and organizations who must file information with the federal government. Ultimately, it will mean they will be able to reuse their tagged data for all government reports, resulting in considerable savings related to data preparation and handling. A copy of the bill is available on this website.