Get ready for the scramble. According to Compliance Week’s recent survey, nearly 80 percent of all public companies are unprepared to file their SEC filings in XBRL, the financial reporting format the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to mandate within a few months. Despite the continual efforts of the SEC to keep filers informed about the upcoming changes and benefits of the new reporting format, most will be scrambling to comply with an SEC mandate as new requirements kick in.
Only 44 percent of the companies surveyed have only just begun learning about XBRL and 11 percent still reported no knowledge at all of the reporting format that is about to become standard in the United States. Nearly 80 percent had no internal expertise. Of the remaining, nearly all personnel knowledgeable about XBRL were on the reporting team rather than in the IT department.
Large and small companies are similarly unprepared, even though about 500 of the largest companies will likely be adopting XBRL within months.
Fortunately, a fast learning curve
Most companies that currently file XBRL reports in the SEC’s voluntary filing program use an outside resource to translate and submit their financials in XBRL format. Of those, most use RRD Donnelley’s XBRL filing solution, which is powered by EDGAR Online. Both companies were early participants in the voluntary program, where they developed the efficient, three-step process.
Called EZ Start XBRL Filing, the solution lets companies jump starting the learning curve and quickly develop internal expertise. A whitepaper explaining the process is available at www.tryXBRL.com.
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