So you want to outsource the XBRL tagging service? You are not alone.
The US SEC announced April 13, 2009 as the effective date for the 500 largest public U.S. companies to begin filing their financial results using XBRL—an XML-defined standard used to analyze, exchange and report information by using tagged data elements. The ruling by the SEC demonstrates the growing global momentum for all companies to adopt XBRL for disclosing financial reports. At Rivet we have consulted with a large number of public companies and helped some of them by providing either tagging software and/or tagging services.
Some of the public companies in the first wave have elected to outsource the entire XBRL tagging service to service providers. From these companies we have heard over and over again that they believe the XBRL tagging process can be complex and intricate: the labels of the element tags must match the labels in the facing financials, various validation rules have been imposed by the SEC, and the taxonomies can often be complicated confusing. It requires someone to make “judgment calls” in the tagging process.
It’s understandable that companies want to hire “experts” to help them navigate the XBRL landscape, especially for the first few filings they have to tackle. Once companies get more comfortable with XBRL, they might decide to take better control of the process but, until then, how can companies be certain that the XBRL filings created by outside servicing companies are accurate, complete, and compliant?
Recently, the Rivet team wanted to find a balanced way to assist the XBRL community so that preparers can effectively manage the government’s requirements and at the same time (1) gain practical, non-scary, knowledge of XBRL and (2) gain confidence that they are indeed compliant.
Dragon View Spring 2009 Release takes on a different persona
Have you used Dragon View in the past? If you have, you probably think of Dragon View as a handy utility that can be used to view XBRL taxonomies and instance documents. Now consider this; A viewing tool is a good start for a reviewing tool. This is our vision.
Dragon View can provide a high-level summary view and has the ability to enable reviewers (internal and external) to drill down and drill around to get a comprehensive view of the filing before it’s submitted to SEC. Should it have extremely flexible sorting, filtering, and reporting capabilities that put the reviewer in control? And how about enabling reviewers to record notes, comments, and even make recommendations inside the tool? What if it could benchmark a filing against its peer groups? How great would it be to have an integrated validation engine, so none of the validation exceptions can escape the reviewers’ eyes? Well, the possibilities are abundant and very interesting indeed.
Most of the features described in this blog will be available when we release the Dragon View Spring Edition in the next few weeks, and some would be implemented in subsequent releases. We believe these features provide innovative ways to help our customers review XBRL Documents. Most of the features mentioned here are patent-pending.
DRILLDOWN/DRILL AROUND
Dragon View provides multiple drill paths that enable you to get a clear picture of the filing. For example, if you want to know what reports the investors would see when the filing hits the SEC, try “Report Preview”. If you are interested in how detailed numbers are rolled up to summary, you can view the “Calculation Details”.
BENCHMARK
If you put on a reviewer’s hat, it might interest you to see how “other” companies who are filing select which elements to use, wouldn’t it? It would be especially useful if you could compare your element selection to the companies in your industry or – better yet – in a custom peer group that you have created. If you are a Dragon Tag or CrossTag user, you will be glad to know that the “Help me Tag” functionality has found a new home in Dragon View too. Now a reviewer can utilize the “Help me Tag” functionality to suggest alternative elements for their internal/external clients.
TOTAL CONTROL
We believe that, as a reviewer, you want to be able to look at the available information in your own way. For example, you might just want to focus on the extended elements. With Dragon View you can “filter” the report and get just the extended elements. Perhaps you are interested in comparing your element selection against the peer companies in your industry and to “sort” by the SIC percentage. You can also output the reports into an Excel or HTML based reporting book. You are in control when it comes to using Dragon View as a reviewing tool.
Rivet is always on your side
We support your decision to perform the XBRL tagging in-house or outsourcing it to solutions providers—either to Rivet or to other providers. Regardless of your selection of the type of solution, we want to do our best to assist you in making sure that you are compliant, and that you are always in the driver’s seat when it comes to the disclosure of your company’s financial statements.
Tags: Assurance, Compliance, Customer, Dragon View, Products
