The Nov 2010 KPMG article Challenges Continue with XBRL Compliance, makes the following statements:

While management may outsource some aspects of the XBRL-tagged financial information preparation, it still retains ultimate responsibility.

and…

New analytical tools may assist with management’s review of the XBRL-tagged financial information.

These statements highlight the importance of both the pre-filing ‘review and approve’ process and the need for tag analytics (am I using the right tag, do I need to extend, does this filing look like my peers, can I get my auditors the data they need to do their due diligence), as a part of this process. This is key functionality you should look for in any XBRL tool used to manage the external close. Naturally our own Rivet Crossfire happens to do both quite well – in fact it ‘does’ rather than ‘may’ assist (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post

See my previous Deep Dive Reviewing post for more on tag analytics and the review and approve process.

---

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 at 6:25 am and is filed under Analytics, XBRL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.