This webinar will cover topics we feel would help both current and future SEC filers using XBRL. We will discuss how to improve your XBRL filing process including your review process and how to educate your organization. Please join us for this helpful and informative webinar.

Title: Best Practices for Your XBRL Filing
Date: Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM MDT

Register >>

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Your Rivet Team

…our survey also suggests that many companies have a clear gap between their leaders’ aspirations with regard to sustainability and the way that sustainability is enabled within their organizations.

The 48 large company respondents did not reveal anything significantly different from much of the ‘as-is’ corporate thinking around sustainability but the report makes some useful suggestions for recognising the need to:

• Align sustainability effort with corporate strategy
• Integrate sustainability into operations and processes
• Structure non-traditional collaborations and extend existing collaborations
• Set up an appropriate sustainability governance structure

All in all this sounds like the blueprint for a rather large  and frankly unsustainable consulting gig. But businesses have to start somewhere and for me it all starts with this:

Companies should identify key metrics for understanding current and desired sustainability outcomes

Preferably by just cherry-picking them from the existing GRI/DEFRA (UK)/DVFA (EU) sets. Get started by beginning at the end, then collect the data to evidence your progress, connect the dots (financial and non-financial) and communicate the results as transparently and widely as possible.

Everyone knows that more sustainability-related regulation is inevitable. But why head for a repeat of the Sarbanes-Oxley debacle? Do shareholders really want businesses to once again throw large sums of money at getting their processes in place, people trained up and partners in sync for ‘new’ sustainability legislation when it is not too hard to anticipate the shape and form it will take?

Get your feet wet now. You don’t need a full-blown EMS (or environmental ERP as I call it) just something to set objectives, collect the data and report it (plan, do, check etc.) so you can make progress at your own sustainable pace.

Part of the power of ‘interactive data’ comes not just from the format but from getting the data out there so I’m not at all sure why there is no automated Twitter stream as I am sure it’s a trivial thing to do. If XBRL-Labs can create an iphone app, then a Twitter feed should be a doddle. I imagine the tweet as an automated post coming from the S.E.C. based on a filing event and the body of the Tweet comprising something like :

ACME Inc. 10-K (or 10-Q) 2010 (or quarter/year) plus a shortened URL that takes you directly to the instance document in the S.E.C. viewer plus a few fixed hashtags like  #SEC #XBRL #10-K (or #10-Q)

That’s unlikely to go over 140 characters and would add XBRL filings to the stream to further tantalize the Twitterati.

As supporters of this movement, we’ve pitched a panel discussion at the upcoming South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin to advance the discussion about sustainability reporting.  Check it out and vote for it here:  http://bit.ly/d8tn6A

The sustainability movement is gaining momentum every day, but the harsh reality is that in order to be globally adopted, there must be a way to review and reconcile the demand for sustainability with the requirement for profitability. The solution? Sustainability reporting that integrates financial and non-financial data to deliver a more complete view of the business. In other words, reporting that connects corporate financial performance with corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) behavior – reporting that delivers a holistic view of the business to improve information transparency and traceability for every stakeholder.

Some of the topics we’ll be covering include:

• What is sustainability reporting?
• Who are the drivers of sustainability standards?
• How will the sustainability movement change the way businesses are managed and valued?
• How can we change the way businesses operate to hold companies responsible for their commitment to non-financial metrics (Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG))?
• How can businesses can get involved with ESG and integrated reporting?

Create buzz for green initiatives and help spread the word about the sustainability movement by voting for our panel.  Voting closes Friday!  Thank you!

We are pitching a panel topic focused on the role XBRL plays in corporate and government transparency for the next South by Southwest conference in Austin.  Vote for it here: http://bit.ly/aT3E5T.  This conference has a focus on innovation and technology – what better group to start sharing the XBRL message?

Some of the topics we’ll be covering include:

• How the global movement toward international standards will help people access, analyze and evaluate all types of information
• How government agencies are utilizing XBRL to oversee activities such as government spending
• Why the SEC and other regulatory agencies mandated the use of XBRL for financial reporting and what the future holds
• How XBRL can be applied beyond financial reporting.

Show your support for XBRL and data transparency by taking a moment to vote for our panel.  Voting closes Friday!  Thank you!

The ultimate solution is government regulation…because…Still, with all their faults, governments are a far more effective protector of the public good than any campaign for corporate social responsibility.

Go tell that to Patagonia and others like them.

Apparently nobody goes to restaurants that serve quality locally sourced food because they are making a consumer choice and think it’s a good thing to do, they are only doing it because the restaurant business has realized they can make more profit from serving this kind of food to us gullible consumers.

The article is a good read and well-argued but lacks the E.M. Forster dimension: “Only connect..”  - shareholders are people too.

INT. BAR – NIGHT

XBRL-geek GUY is desperately trying to impress his date who sits at a table covered in empty shot glasses. His mobile phone buzzes. Holy canoly! It’s a text from the Brix Project. He skims it then holds up his mobile (cell) to show his GAL date.

GUY
Guess what?

GAL
(interrupted from downing her 24th tequila shot)
What?

GUY
Widgets Inc. just filed their 10-Q!

GAL
(quiet burp)
Suhweet…

As the Guy waits breathlessly for the next Brix alert, the Gal slumps face down onto the table shattering shot glasses with her nose-ring and eyebrow-ring and lip-ring. Guy looks at Gal.

GUY
Man. Those Brix guys were right. That was some aha moment…

Joking aside. Kudos to XBRL Labs. Get that data out there. Yeah baby!

When you file to the S.E.C. today using XBRL you are operating in a ‘push’ mode. You create the filing and transmit/upload it to the S.E.C. But why can’t the S.E.C. simply ‘pull’ the data from your internal XBRL repository as and when it needs to, saving you the bother? Never mind a 10-K or a 10-Q they can have a 10-D (daily) if they really want it. Be my guest.

The reason is that RaaS doesn’t exist but there is no reason why it shouldn’t.

The way Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and dozens of other cloud crowd apps provide access to their data is through something called an application programming interface or API. A geeky term for a software layer that manages how a data provider (providing application) interacts with a data consumer (consuming application). To deliver Data as a Service you need to create an API – most serious enterprise applications have one and so do all the most successful user-generated content services. This is a one to one to many model: One datasource (Tweets), one API (Twitter’s), many consumers (the Tweeterati).

Now what if you want to provide some of your internal data as a service to some deserving third party? You’ll need to create an API. The reason you need to create a new API of your own is because your data appears to be different from that of another business – i.e. it’s organized and stored differently – even though it may be intrinsically the same kind of data (e.g. US_GAAP accounting data). Your API unlocks your specific set of data by providing a standard way to access and consume it.

But what if your data is in fact organized and stored in the same way as the same data being produced by lots of other companies? Say as XBRL instance documents subject to the US-GAAP taxonomy. What then?

Well now lots of companies can share one core API to share their data with each other and anyone else with a legitimate use for it. Let’s call it the SEC US-GAAP API ROUTER or SUGAR for short. For example, vanilla sugar (see how I did that?) is configured to allow access only to the XBRL data that comprises a standard public 10-Q/10-K filing. Why? So the S.E.C., and anyone else who wants to, can consume it directly from the horses mouth – literally whenever they want. Real intentional transparency in other words  and no possibility that your data can get lost in translation somehow – e.g. lip my stockings as that nice Japanese lady so charmingly put it.

The S.E.C. and others can now ‘pull’ it from your XBRL repository with the help of a little sugar. That’s a many to one to many model. Many XBRL ‘provider’  repositories (i.e. businesses filing to the S.E.C. in XBRL now), one API (SUGAR), many ‘consumer’ applications (one of which is could be the S.E.C. itself).

Now what if you want to spread a little more of that sugar around or in different measures? Maybe to your business partners or specific stakeholder groups? Easy. You simply extend the core sugar API to reflect which other XBRL data you want to make available and to whom (using rules and roles – just like workflow) – to package it as a service in other words as caster sugar, brown sugar etc.

The RaaS model is a fundamentally different way of doing corporate reporting and one that literally turns the current S.E.C filing process on its head. And a key fact is it depends on the use of shared, agreed XBRL taxonomies and XBRL-enabled data repositories. Something that (ahem) we like to encourage here at Rivet.

Well here are a few reasons:

1. The number of filings have gone up

As the S.E.C. mandate kicks in, more companies are required to file so the ‘pie’ has got bigger. Obviously this should have a positive impact on all software companies providing XBRL filing services.

2. The filing requirements are getting more complex and the scope is widening

As new filing criteria are added, like detail footnote tagging, not all XBRL reporting software may be able to support the new requirements or support them well. Rivet works closely with the S.E.C to ensure that our software keeps up with new and changing filing demands. We are also agile enough to able to respond quickly and effectively as the filing scope expands e.g. to embrace mutual funds.

3. We’ve been doing this for a while

Rivet’s founders and management team have been in the corporate reporting software business since the early 1990’s and Rivet was in the XBRL reporting business some years before the S.E.C. mandate came into force. Some of us have been engaged with XBRL since early 1999, which is not long after Charlie Hoffman first had the idea and when it was known as XML-based Financial Reporting Markup Language or XFRML. So we’ve been around the block and know a thing or two about corporate reporting and the long-term potential of XBRL.

4. We’re not just about technology and tagging

Producing an accurate XBRL S.E.C. filing is not just about technology and tagging. To figure out whether to extend the US-GAAP taxonomy or not or what is the best tag to use for a specific reporting line requires both tagging smarts and accounting knowledge. That’s why our tag teams have access to our on-staff-CPAs so that our technology skills are complemented by our accounting skills.

5. We see the bigger picture

XBRL is about much more than tagging and compliance, it’s about a better way to control and communicate information. Rivet’s Crossfire Reporting Platform is fully-XBRL enabled and can make use of any XBRL taxonomy used anywhere around the world so it’s ideal for use in multinational corporations. But Crossfire is equally capable of producing all kinds of internal corporate reporting formats – including the ‘new’ integrated reports that combine financial and non-financial information in the same reporting context.

We’re looking forward to an even better year in 2011.

By mandating the adoption of consistent data standards for information that regulators are already collecting from public companies, banks, exchanges, and other market actors, this bill will move the whole industry toward unprecedented transparency and liquidity.  Crowd-sourced oversight by analysts, media, watchdog groups, and the public, Mr. Issa believes, is the best hope for averting and mitigating future financial crises.

‘Crowd-sourced oversight’ certainly has the potential to be a powerful force for ‘averting and mitigating future financial crises’. And to enable this, the bill rightly emphasizes the importance and need for the use of  ‘data standards’ by a number of Government agencies, by which is meant:

(b) Characteristics Of Financial Data Standards.—The data standards required by subsection (a) shall, to the extent practicable—

“(1) incorporate widely accepted, nonproprietary, searchable, computer readable data formats;

“(2) be consistent with and implement—

“(A) United States generally accepted accounting principles or Federal financial accounting standards (as appropriate);

“(B) demonstrated best practices; and

“(C) Federal regulatory requirements;

“(3) improve the transparency, consistency, and usability of business and financial information;

“(4) ensure interoperability and appropriate reuse of information;

“(5) reuse, enhance, harmonize, and integrate existing standards as possible and appropriate;

“(6) be capable of being continually upgraded to be of maximum use as technologies and content evolve over time; and

“(7) be consistent and interoperable with one another.

Now who can quibble with that? Stop being blindsided by information opacity and support the bill. And anyway, Rep. Issa is one of the few officials around who has a POGO award.