The CFA’s Investor Forum 2017, developed by XBRL US and held in sponsorship with CFA Institute and CFA Society New York, recently explored numerous issues applicable to the use of XBRL in the financial data analysis and reporting industries. During the conference, Michelle Savage, Vice President of Communication for XBRL US, and Scott Theis, CEO of Novaworks, LLC and Chairman of XBRL US’s Domain Steering Committee, discussed an earnings release case study that discussed how building an XBRL taxonomy to represent the data held within the release could be beneficial to the financial and investment communities.

At CFA’s Investor Forum 2017, a panel of industry experts discussed case studies that illustrate XBRL’s use in accounting and financial reporting and the rationale behind its adoption. This panel discussed different ways in which XBRL is employed in the financial sector.

On September 12th, 2017, SunSpec Alliance and XBRL US announced the launch of a 30-day public review period on the initial draft of the Orange Button taxonomy for solar financing.

XBRL US will be offering a second IFRS Taxonomy Deep Dive Webinar on August 23rd at 3:00 PM EST. This webinar will cover the IFRS Taxonomy and SEC rules requiring foreign private issuers to file their financials in XBRL format.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has published their Proposed Update 1 to the IFRS taxonomy. These updates pertain to IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. A public comment period has begun and will end on September 18th, 2017.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has begun a public review period on July 19th, 2017, for the fifth set of proposed 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.

In March, the SEC introduced proposed changes to include Inline XBRL Tagging in financial filings. We covered these proposed amendments in this blog post. The public comment period recently ended on May 16th, and the comments are available to read here. XBRL US offered one such comment on the proposed requirements to include Inline XBRL in financial filings, and in it expressed agreement that inclusion on Inline XBRL will help to improve the quality of reported structured financial data while reducing the burden on filers.

XBRL US has started a 90-day public exposure period for the XBRL US Style Guide, which was recently revised, updated, and released by the XBRL US Domain Steering Committee. The comment period began on April 17th and continues through July 17th. The Domain Steering Committee intends for the Style Guide to facilitate the creation of consistent, high-quality XBRL taxonomies by providing uniform guidelines and recommendations.

Every year, FASB releases a new version of the US GAAP XBRL taxonomy. Depending on the individual filer, adopting this new taxonomy can be easy or potentially require a fair amount of work. While FASB does have release notes for the taxonomy, there is little guidance on how to adopt the new changes. In this blog, we will be going over what can change in a taxonomy update, how to identify those changes, and how to determine what, if anything, needs to be done to your filing to incorporate the changes.

The SEC recently approved and published the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy so foreign private issuers can begin submitting their financial reports to EDGAR using XBRL. Requirements for foreign private issuers to use XBRL were originally adopted in 2009 with the caveat that such requirements would not go into effect until the IFRS taxonomy was available. Now that the taxonomy has been published on the SEC’s website, issuers may begin using it to submit financial statements.

On March 1, 2017, the SEC voted to propose amendments intended to improve the quality and accessibility of data submitted by public companies and mutual funds using XBRL. These changes, which are part of the SEC’s ongoing initiative to modernize the EDGAR system, would require the use of Inline XBRL.

On December 12, 2016, EDGAR 16.4 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release primarily contained updates for Form MA and Form ABS-EE.

The 2017 US GAAP Taxonomy is going to introduce some rather drastic changes to the way XBRL is prepared. While these changes are proposed for only a few small sections of the taxonomy for now, it looks like this is going to be the shape of things to come for XBRL.

Update: The November 2 XBRL US SEC Filer Workshop has been cancelled.

XBRL US is hosting a one-day workshop for SEC filers on Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at the AICPA offices in New York City. Topics covered by the workshop will include the changes to financial reporting that regulators are proposing, including the permitted use of Inline XBRL and revisions to disclosure requirements.

In XBRL as in other data reporting systems, calculations show relationships among data. Since XBRL defines calculations in this way without validating the accuracy of their results, it is important to examine the results of calculations in XBRL filings. Many preparers may assume that when a calculation does not add up, it is due to rounding, but this may not be a safe assumption.