XBRL News

Washington, D.C. (April 17, 2008)
By WebCPA staff

The Securities and Exchange Commission will decide next Monday on its plans for any requirements and timeline for public companies to file their financial statements in an interactive data format.The SEC said it had seen success so far in its tests of companies voluntarily filing their financials in Extensible Business Reporting Language. XBRL tags are supposed to make the data easier for investors to compare and analyze with software such as Microsoft Excel. U.S. generally accepted accounting principles have already been translated into XBRL format."We see XBRL as the liberator of financial data from financial documents," said David Blaszkowsky, director of the SEC's Office of Interactive Disclosure. He said the SEC would meet on April 21 to discuss the rules for XBRL. The SEC will also work with securities regulators in other countries to collaborate on further developing the standard.Jon Wisnieski, senior information systems specialist at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said the banking regulator has seen much cleaner data since it mandated in 2005 that banks use XBRL in their financial statements.

© 2007 WebCPA and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

XBRL International, in collaboration with XBRL US, is hosting a free workshop designed to help European-based public companies file financial statements to the SEC EDGAR System. Senior officials from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will be present to answer questions from public company executives about integrating XBRL into their business reporting process. The SEC EDGAR System is the world’s largest public access Web site to financial statement information used by millions of investors.

The workshop will be held on May 7 from 3:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. and will demonstrate how to create XBRL-enabled financial documents and how to participate in the public review of the XBRL US GAAP Taxonomies. The workshop will feature case studies from companies in Europe that are participating in the Securities & Exchange Commission's (SEC) Voluntary Filing Program.

Topics covered include:

* XBRL and What It Means to You

* The SEC and XBRL-SEC Timeline and Developments to Date

* Overview of the U.S. GAAP Taxonomies

* XBRL Nuts & Bolts-How to Create XBRL-enabled Financials for Foreign Filers Based in Europe

* Case Study: A Foreign Filer Preparer's Viewpoint

To register for the free workshop in Eindhoven, Netherlands, "How to Create XBRL-formatted Financials for the SEC EDGAR System," please send an email to cherylneal@xbrl.org and please put into the subject line: “SEC Foreign Filer.”

In addition to the workshop for SEC foreign filers, XBRL International will be holding its 17th Global Conference/Expo on XBRL from May 5-8, 2008 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. For full details of the conference please go to: http://conference.xbrl.org/registration

London (April 2, 2008)
By WebCPA staff

The International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation's XBRL Team has released the near-final version of the IFRS Taxonomy 2008, translating International Financial Reporting Standards into Extensible Business Reporting Language.

The move follows the translation last year of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles into XBRL and the release of the GAAP taxonomy by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the American Institute of CPAs. GAAP and IFRS are on a path to convergence, and the SEC is pushing companies to file their financial statements in XBRL to make them easier for investors to analyze and compare.

"XBRL is rapidly becoming the format of choice for the electronic filing of financial information-particularly within jurisdictions reporting under IFRS," said Gerrit Zalm (pictured), chairman of trustees of the IASC Foundation, in a statement.

The IFRS Taxonomy 2008 represents a complete review of past taxonomies and is also the first taxonomy to undergo an extensive external review by the XBRL Quality Review Team, which was set up by the IASC Foundation at the end of 2007.

The XQRT includes 20 experts from the preparer community, securities regulators, central banks, financial institutions and software companies.

© 2007 WebCPA and SourceMedia, Inc.

By Erin Kello

Fund companies are starting to see the XBRL writing on the wall.  Five more have come forward to file risk/return summaries using XBRL.  

According to the SEC’s website, companies that have done so include Vanguard, AllianceBernstein, Fidelity, First American Investments and Federated Investments.

Both Fidelity and Vanguard passed on the SEC’s original XBRL pilot program.Companies that have already filed a risk/return statement using XBRL include: JennisonDryden, OpFunds, John Hancock and U.S. Bancorp Fund Services.

If there comes a time when all fund companies file all SEC documents using XBRL, transparency would increase greatly as the SEC database becomes infinitely more searchable.© 2008 InvestmentWires, Inc.

More than half of finance executives believe their companies are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to increase revenue, reduce operating costs, improve investor returns and shareholder value, and improve employee retention through sustainability, according to a survey conducted by CFO Research for Jones Lang LaSalle.

But most finance executives acknowledged that their own role in driving sustainability was limited.

The greatest barriers to incorporating sustainability into financial strategy include the inability to measure the effects of sustainability on shareholder value (ranked among the top three challenges by 46% of respondents), inability to document the effects on financial performance (37%), and a lack of standard decision-making frameworks that consider environmental factors (36%).

But that could soon change. The Global Reporting Initiative’s creation of an extensible business reporting language taxonomy for the many indicators itemized in its sustainability framework, could automate sustainability reporting in much the same way that the SEC believes XBRL will aid the production of financial reports.

As reports encompass more data, CFOs, who are better qualified to verify whether data is accurate and up-to-date, might take the lead in sustainability reporting.

We’re already seeing a move to roll sustainability reporting into annual reports (BASF made a big deal when it combined its reports earlier this month).

David Phillips, senior corporate reporting leader at PwC agrees with the general direction. “It is mainstream and the responsibility of the CFO and CEO,” he said in an article last year.

The Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability project released a report that focused on how to “embed” sustainability considerations into general corporate thinking, but also on how to report these efforts.

Other findings of the report:

• The most often cited benefits of a move towards sustainability were reduced risk (”very” or “somewhat” likely to produce benefits at 78% of companies), enhanced brand and reputation (77%), customer retention (72%), and improved employee health and productivity (68%).
• The highest priority objectives in corporate sustainability are regulatory compliance (ranked as a high priority for 61% and a mid-level priority for 26% of respondents), improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (a high priority for 47%, mid-level for 32%), and reducing the environmental impact of operations (45% and 32%).

The study surveyed 175 corporate CFOs and senior finance executive.