The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board released guidance related to attest engagements regarding Extensible Business Reporting Language data furnished under the Securities and Exchange Commission XBRL Voluntary Financial Reporting Program on the Edgar System.
The staff questions and answers provide guidance for auditors who are engaged to report on whether the XBRL data accurately reflects the corresponding information in the official Edgar filings and address both performance and reporting matters relating to applying the board's attestation standards to those engagements.
The XBRL voluntary financial reporting program, which began in April, allows public companies to voluntarily furnish XBRL data in an exhibit to specified Edgar filings. The program's aim is to help the SEC assess the ability of public companies to tag their financial information using XBRL technology and the overall benefits of using tagged data for end-users.
While the program doesn't require companies to obtain auditor attestations to XBRL data, the questions and answers provide guidance to auditors engaged to perform such attestations for companies that want to obtain such assurance.The guidance is available at
