XBRL U.S. has launched the XBRL Consistency Suite, a set of online XBRL tools intended to help public companies identify the large amount of inconsistencies in XBRL documents related to the use of the XBRL U.S. GAAP Taxonomy.
According to XBRL U.S., thousands of errors have been identified in the over 1,400 XBRL financial statements that have been submitted to date, including incorrect use of signs, missing XBRL-tagged elements, and tags that should not have been reported.
The XBRL Consistency Suite performs over 6,000 tests against a companys XBRL document and produces a report that shows taxonomy-specific errors that have been made. Companies or their service providers can run the tools on their XBRL-formatted financials before submitting the filings to regulators and investors as a final step in the XBRL creation process. It also includes access to a database of XBRL documents submitted to the SEC and updated regularly.
Public companies have a lot of decisions to make when using the XBRL U.S. GAAP Taxonomy. They should not be penalized for mistakes that can be easily corrected, said XBRL U.S. chief standards officer Campbell Pryde. Our goal [with the new suite] is to help companies and industries establish a common core set of best practices so that investors and regulators get the information they need.
The XBRL Consistency Suite was developed by XBRL U.S. Labs, the research and development arm of XBRL U.S., the nonprofit consortium for XML business reporting standards in the United States, and is a jurisdiction of XBRL International. It represents the business information supply chain, including accounting firms, software companies, financial databases, printers and government agencies.
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