Monday, July 08. 2019

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Adopts XBRL

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is revising its electronic filing format for particular data collections to make it easier for filers to submit information and for data analyzers to use that information. This new rule, which was passed June 20, 2019, will modernize FERC’s data collection, which will in turn increase efficiency in regulatory filings and business information processing while furthering transparency and over time decreasing costs in preparing the data for submission.


FERC is formally adopting the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), already employed by other government regulatory agencies like the SEC and the Department of Energy. Currently information is transmitted to FERC using FERC-distributed software called Visual FoxPro. However, Microsoft, which developed Visual FoxPro, is no longer supporting this software. On April 25, 2015, FERC announced its intention to adopt a non-proprietary XML-based filing format in response and has now decided upon XBRL. The move to this new standard was broadly supported by industry groups.


XBRL will become required for filing Forms Nos. 1, 1-F, 2, 2-A, 3-Q electric, 3-Q natural gas, 6, 6-Q, 60, and 714. FERC staff will now commence developing a draft XBRL taxonomy, which will be discussed at a future technical conference. Additional comments will be collected from the industry before FERC will issue an order to adopt the final standard and create an appropriate implementation schedule. Industry participants will be afforded reasonable time to develop their software, and FERC will provide a platform for testing filers’ submissions.



Sources:

FERC Acts to Modernize Process for Filing Commission Forms (www.ferc.gov)
Revisions to the Filing Process for Commission Forms (www.ferc.gov)



Posted by
The Novaworks Team
in FERC, XBRL at 14:38