The SEC has mandated the use of XBRL for all public companies and mutual funds, and we’re thrilled. For all the criticism that Chairman Cox is facing right now, we give him full credit for what may be his most lasting legacy — dragging the world’s largest capital market into a 21st century digital reporting standard. As the leader in XBRL, we at EDGAR Online understand that this data format is as significant to the financial industry as digital formats have been to the music industry.
Recognizing how information can be buried or obscured in financial reports, Cox had become the loudest, most influential proponent of “interactive data” and last month, before the end of his tenure, he managed to mandate its use by the world’s largest capital market. There’s no going back.
The SEC rule requires the largest companies to start furnishing XBRL with their Q2 2009 SEC filings, and smaller companies to follow one year later. Mutual funds must begin tagging key information, including risks, fees and performance, by January 2011. Here’s the SEC news release with more details.
EDGAR Online was a founding member of the XBRL consortium that developed and continues to refine the eXtensible Business Reporting Language for global communication of business information. We know first hand the incredible information that is locked up in SEC filings — and are thrilled that the world is about to understand this also.
EDGAR Online encourages all filers and financial professionals to learn more about interactive data. We have already created the largest XBRL database in the world, based on ten years of U.S. public companies’ reports, and have helped more U.S. companies file in XBRL than anyone in the world to date. In anticipation of the SEC mandate, we’ve designed our website around XBRL resources and solutions, which include:
- Conversion of financial statements into XBRL for companies filing with the SEC
- Data feeds and Web products that provide access to the largest and only commercially available database of XBRL-tagged data for all U.S. public companies, and
- Software tools for viewing and analyzing XBRL company data.
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