Staff at the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) at the SEC have released an announcement regarding the use of certain XBRL elements for revenue disclosures. Filers that have adopted Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606) should be using the new elements related to this ASU to tag related revenue disclosures in their financial statements and notes. However, the staff has observed that filers instead are using outdated tags under the Accounting Standards Codification Topic 605, Revenue Recognition.

The XBRL US Data Quality Committee (DQC US) has approved new validation rules to aid public companies in detecting inconsistencies and errors in their XBRL-formatted financial data. These rules identify potential problems, including incorrect negative values, improper relationships between elements, and incorrect data associated with certain data. The new rules, which are listed below, were approved after publication as a draft and with consideration of public comments.

Both GoFiler Complete and GoXBRL have the tools necessary to create EDGAR filings in Inline XBRL. The process is the same in both applications and involves adding XBRL financial data to an HTML document using a patented technology called XDX. With XDX, you can add XBRL information to different types of HTML blocks which is then processed by the software to create EDGAR compliant XBRL.

XBRL US has posted a helpful Q&A on the new Inline XBRL (iXBRL) Cover Page tagging requirements for SEC filings.

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.

With compliance dates approaching, reviewing the SEC’s mandate for operating companies and funds that they report their financial information in Inline XBRL (iXBRL) is important. These requirements date back to June 2018, when the SEC passed rules seeking to modernize and simplify financial reporting for these filers. Unlike traditional XBRL which produces a XML document containing only tagged, structured data that is difficult for a human reader to understand and interpret, iXBRL involves embedding XBRL data directly into an HTML filing so that the disclosure document is both human-readable as a formatted report of financial information and machine-readable since the tagged data can be collected and used in subsequent analyses in any number of ways. Using iXBRL improves the data’s usefulness, timeliness, and quality, which benefits investors, regulators, market participants, and other data consumers. Inline XBRL also reduces burdens and complexity to registrants and preparers as only one document containing both the formatted report and the structured data must be produced.

With the last EDGAR release, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated EDGAR to accept the US GAAP 2019 taxonomy among other new taxonomies. It’s always a good practice to transition your SEC filings as soon as possible when the SEC accepts the new taxonomy year.

Version 4.26a of all applications in the GoFiler Suite has been released. This release corresponds to EDGAR Release 19.1 and contains a number of improvements to Form N-CEN View, general EDGAR forms, and XBRL. Additionally, this version contains support for the US GAAP 2019 taxonomy.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has released the eighth set of rules and is seeking comment during a public exposure period ending February 1, 2019. The Data Quality Committee rules aim to help filers limit mistakes and avoid data inconsistencies that can adversely affect analysis of reported financial information. This release includes rules for issuers using either the US-GAAP or IFRS taxonomies.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has published the seventh set of rules to provide guidance and aid for issuers in identifying errors in their XBRL SEC filings. The Data Quality Committee rules aim to help filers limit mistakes and avoid data inconsistencies that can adversely affect analysis of reported financial information. The seventh release of rules includes guidance for issuers using the US-GAAP taxonomies.

Last month, XBRL US introduced a free application program interface (API) standard as a Proposed Release. The API is designed to help programmers create, extract, and analyze XBRL formatted data. It is meant to be a standard that acts as a software intermediary, allowing applications to communicate with one another. Investors and analysts alike can use the XBRL API to gain access to and manipulate XBRL data, both historical data and data that is up-to-date. The API will work with any XBRL database or taxonomy.

On December 6th, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation released the IFRS Taxonomy 2018 – Proposed Update 2 General Improvements.

The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) recently analyzed XBRL exhibits submitted by issuers complying with the 2009 Interactive Data rules to file financial statement information in an XBRL format. The purpose of the analysis was to determine if IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) filers were being consistent with their use of custom tags with US-GAAP (US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) filers during this first year of required XBRL filings.

The IFRS Foundation has published a proposed update to the IFRS Taxonomy 2018, Common Practice (IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement). This Proposed Update is one of multiple updates released throughout the year to reflect amendments to International Financial Reporting Standards. The updates can represent changes to common practice elements, taxonomy architecture, or annual improvements that may include refinements to taxonomy data models in order to support consistent tagging or improvements that better reflect presentation and disclosure requirements.

On October 1, 2018, EDGAR Release 18.3 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release contains changes to the N-CEN and N-PORT EDGAR forms as well as improvements to EDGAR XBRL validation in addition to other changes.