Companies Expect to Defy SEC on XBRL Mandate

Nearly one-third of public companies have no plans to use Extensible Business Reporting Language technology for their financial filings, despite an SEC mandate requiring XBRL use by 2011.

A new survey of CFOs and senior controllers by Grant Thornton found that 64 percent of public companies do not currently report their financial results using XBRL. Of those, half have no plans to file their financials in XBRL format in the future, despite an SEC mandate that all public companies have to report their financials using the interactive data format by 2011.

XBRL data-tagging technology is supposed to make it easier for investors and analysts to compare financial results across different companies and industries. The SEC began requiring the largest public companies to file their financial statements in XBRL last year (see SEC Finalizes XBRL Requirements).

“It’s concerning that almost a third of public companies still have no plan on using XBRL to report their financials despite the requirement that all public companies comply with XBRL filing requirements by mid-year 2011,” said Sean Denham, a partner in Grant Thornton’s Professional Standards Group and a member of the AICPA’s XBRL Task Force. “I foresee a lot of companies playing catch up as the 2011 SEC deadline approaches.”