Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. [Chinese Proverb]
It is with great enthusiasm that we recently announced the launch of Rivet Software’s web-based, on-demand education center, Rivet University (Rivet U). Some people are surprised to hear Rivet is investing so much time and money in training our clients to be more independent. After all, a big part of our business is currently based on companies outsourcing all of their XBRL reporting needs to us.Â
Being a full-service provider for XBRL was the right way to approach the market, but it has never been Rivet’s end game. Complying with the SEC mandate for XBRL is the tip of the iceberg. Our mission has always been to give companies better financial reporting tools, for both internal and external purposes. XBRL is simply a tool. It’s also a great place to start in streamlining and transforming financial reporting workflows to create efficiencies and better quality controls.
Rivet U currently features training for Crossfire, the software used internally by Rivet’s compliance team to create financial reports for our full-service clients. Crossfire is also used by Rivet’s self-service clients as their in-house solution. We fully anticipate more and more clients will become “self-service” as they are trained through Rivet U and become increasingly more confident with the nuances of XBRL and Crossfire.
While the goal is to make companies more independent and put them in complete control of their filings, Rivet will provide an ongoing safety net for companies making the transition. In addition to the help and training resources in Rivet U, we will continue to have live support available on an ongoing basis, and live classroom training in Denver will continue to be an option.
Should a company ever need to migrate back to a full-service model (where Rivet does XBRL filing for them), that is always an option. This is essentially an insurance policy – if you lose a member of your reporting team or need help for whatever reason, you are covered.
I’ll be sharing more information as Rivet U continues to grow. This is truly a labor of love for me and I couldn’t be more excited about empowering people and companies to leverage the XBRL tool for much bigger things. If you want to know more, don’t hesitate to contact us at learn@rivetsoftware.com.
