SEC updates XBRL taxonomy for IFRS

The Securities and Exchange Commission has upgraded its EDGAR system and now supports the 2017 IFRS taxonomy for International Financial Reporting Standards using XBRL technology.

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SEC chairman Jay Clayton revealed last month that the EDGAR system of financial filings had been hacked last year, and on Monday the SEC acknowledged that the hackers also accessed personal information from at least two individuals (see SEC says hackers got more data than previously disclosed).

The SEC said Tuesday the newly upgraded EDGAR system now supports the 2017 IFRS taxonomy, reflecting the same taxonomy that the International Accounting Standards Board made available on its website on March 9, 2017.

Separately, the SEC also said Tuesday that it has updated its interactive data test suite at https://www.sec.gov/page/osdinteractivedatatestsuite to provide new test cases for the 2017 IFRS taxonomy. The test suite has been updated to provide new test cases for the 2017 IFRS taxonomy. There is a summary of the changes on the last page of the summary file at https://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/ednews/efmtest/efmtest-43-170913.pdf).

Comments on the test suite can be submitted by email to StructuredData@sec.gov indicating “Interactive Data Test Suite” in the subject field. The purpose of the public test suite is to help filers use software to validate their interactive data before submitting it to EDGAR.

The use of XBRL, short for Extensible Business Reporting Language, has been spreading since the SEC began requiring public companies to use the interactive technology starting in 2009 for their financial filings. The data-tagging technology is supposed to make it easier for investors and analysts to compare information across companies and industries, although problems with the quality of the data have hampered some of that ease of use. But the technology is still making headway.

Workiva CEO Matt Rizai told Accounting Today during a meeting last week that more than 2,800 companies are using his company’s technology, including over 70 percent of Fortune 100, 500 and 1000 companies. XBRL technology helps companies not only file their financials with the SEC, but deal with it internally.

“The digital world made all of us create an incredible amount of information, and you really can’t handle that information the way you used to 25 or 30 years ago,” he said. “From a regulatory filing point of view, trying to keep everything on a piece of paper, document it and print it is really tough. On top of that, the information is getting to be so much that to be able to use XBRL technology, to be able to tag it, turned out to be pretty smart. Now you can really harmonize the information in a way that you can have a quick understanding of various types of information in similar industries, similar companies, at your fingertips quickly. This has now been recognized by not just U.S., but globally. We use XBRL technology as a way to deal with the sea of information that needs to be dealt with by the professionals.”

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