September 29th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
Rivet delivers a number of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) financial reporting solutions. SaaS is a great application delivery model offering rapid deployment, predictable cost and virtually unlimited scalability. But SaaS solutions rely on the integrity and security of the application hosting provider, on whose servers the application is run and (usually) your application data is stored. That’s why Rivet uses a SAS 70 audited hosting provider. Now if you don’t know what SAS 70 is then you should. So to get up to speed, SAS 70 auditing provider, the Reznick group, offers a useful FAQ page for more information.
Tags: SAS 70
Posted in SaaS | View Comments
September 28th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
One of the promises of XBRL is that standardization of reporting elements aids transparency and comparability of financial numbers. However one important area of transparency and comparability, certainly for peer group assessment, is in the area of corporate performance. But we are a long way from standardizing the definition and metrics of corporate performance, as the March 2009 European Discussion Paper on Corporate Performance (produced by the aptly named PAAinE) highlights. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: performance, reporting
Posted in XBRL | View Comments
September 25th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
We’re used to hearing about the bad habits of fashion models but it’s not often that someone goes public about a bad information model, which is what Evan Lenz plans to do at the upcoming XML-in-Practice 2009 conference, in Arlington, VA. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in XBRL | View Comments
September 23rd, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
There’s been a steady increase in job adverts for reporting analysts and the like that are including the requirement for XBRL expertise. Now I know that writing job specifications is a pain for most people, so I thought I’d help you out. The next time you are writing a job spec for a financial/reporting analyst, just drop in this paragraph – it will save you a lot of time:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Solutions, XBRL | View Comments
September 22nd, 2009 by Brian Larson, CPA - Software Quality Engineer
XBRL is gaining momentum as reporting agencies require their constituents to report using the standard. But how about using it within an organization? I used to work in the internal audit department of a major software company and I’ve been thinking about how XBRL can help in that realm.
A good internal audit department audits based on risk. A risky area, say derivatives trading, deserves a lot more attention from internal audit as opposed to a non-risky area, like marketing. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: crossfire, internal audit, risk assessment, XBRL
Posted in Control, Solutions, XBRL | View Comments
September 18th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
It’s not often that a financial reporting tool can both blow your dress up and knock your socks off, but apparently our Crossfire solution can. Or at least it did for long-time FRx consultant Jan Harrigan CPA, blogging at FRxbuzz.com – a site focused on the popular Microsoft FRx financial report writer.
Now I should say that this post is not going to go into any more detail about Jan’s clothing being disheveled. These Texas gals can be a touch feisty. Instead I want to focus on another part of Jan’s post – namely – I don’t want to build it up too much but this is the future. (her italics). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: FRx
Posted in Communication, Solutions, Taxonomies | View Comments
September 17th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
As Eric Cohen rightly pointed out on Twitter, although there’s no mention of XBRL in the press release, the news that the US SEC and the UK FSA have agreed to identify a common, coherent set of data to collect from hedge fund advisers/managers to help the SEC and FSA identify risks to their regulatory objectives and mandates is surely indicative of yet another candidate for an XBRL taxonomy to add to the growing, global financial information ecosystem.
The good news is that our Crossfire financial reporting solutions are ready to leverage any new taxonomy to help realize the latent value of XBRL-tagged data.
Posted in Uncategorized | View Comments
September 15th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
A very useful analysis of the recent SEC filing round – The results are in on first XBRL filing in Compliance Week includes this quote:
Another criticism: the rendering of XBRL-tagged statements—that is, how they appear to investors when viewed in XBRL reader programs, such as the one on the SEC’s Website. “Companies are hung up on the fact that it doesn’t look exactly like the PDF version of their financials,” says Gary Purnhagen, an XBRL consultant in New York.
Now whether that’s true or not, it highlights one of the contentious issues with ‘interactive data’: Read the rest of this entry »
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September 14th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
A very informative blog post A Future Of On-Line Finance – From Brokers To Blogs To Yahoo analyzes the online finance space across three dimensions: Information, analysis and execution. However, nowhere does this post mention XBRL and the disruptive effect it will have on the future of online finance, especially in the area of what the authors call ‘Super Commons’ – largely free financial portals and blogs. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in XBRL | View Comments
September 7th, 2009 by Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor
Much of the promise of XBRL for comparative reporting – especially in a global context – depends on taxonomy standardization across national boundaries. But as this post on standards and standard-setters from AccountingWEB points out, perhaps the focal issue now is less what should be standardized but who will be in charge of the standardization. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Communication, Taxonomies, XBRL | View Comments
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