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.

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.

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.

On August 17th, the SEC voted to approve amendments to certain disclosure requirements that have become duplicative, overlapping, or outdated. These changes were proposed in light of other disclosure requirements, modifications to US-GAAP, or developments in the information environment. The SEC is also referring to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) particular disclosure requirements that overlap with but require information incremental to GAAP. These requirements will be considered for incorporation into US GAAP.

On June 28, 2018, the SEC voted to adopt amendments to the XBRL reporting requirements that would require registrants to use the Inline XBRL format for the submission of financial statement information and fund risk/return summary information.

On May 31, 2018 the XBRL US Center for Data Quality has released the sixth 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 sixth release of rules includes guidance for issuers using either the US-GAAP or IFRS taxonomies.

With the last EDGAR release, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated EDGAR to accept the US GAAP 2018 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.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun accepting XBRL filings under the new 2018 US-GAAP Taxonomy. Four of the nine SEC-maintained XBRL taxonomies have been altered: the DEI, EXCH, RR,
and STPR taxonomies.

On April 3rd from 1:00 to 2:30 PM EST, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will host a webinar covering 2018 GAAP and SEC taxonomy improvements. During the webinar, the FASB staff will demonstrate how to apply the new modeling using example disclosures and discuss the new 2018 SEC Reporting Taxonomy.

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.

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 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.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has launched a public review for five new proposed validation rules. Additionally, the Data Quality Committee (DQC) has released proposed additions to the previous rule regarding inappropriate negative values.

SEC staff recently released observations regarding registrants’ use of custom axis elements (or custom dimensions) in XBRL reports. The results of their analysis showed that while the overall use of custom axis elements has been declining since 2013, over half of all filers continue to use one or more custom axis elements in their annual reports.

On March 7, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated EDGAR to accept the US GAAP 2016 taxonomy among other new taxonomies. While this taxonomy should not be used for reports with a reporting period that ends before March 7, 2015, it’s a good idea to transition your SEC filings as soon as possible for reporting periods that end after March 7.