Every year, FASB releases a new version of the US GAAP XBRL taxonomy. Depending on the individual filer, adopting this new taxonomy can be easy or potentially require a fair amount of work. While FASB does have release notes for the taxonomy, there is little guidance on how to adopt the new changes. In this blog, we will be going over what can change in a taxonomy update, how to identify those changes, and how to determine what, if anything, needs to be done to your filing to incorporate the changes.

The SEC recently approved and published the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) taxonomy so foreign private issuers can begin submitting their financial reports to EDGAR using XBRL. Requirements for foreign private issuers to use XBRL were originally adopted in 2009 with the caveat that such requirements would not go into effect until the IFRS taxonomy was available. Now that the taxonomy has been published on the SEC’s website, issuers may begin using it to submit financial statements.

On March 1, 2017, the SEC voted to propose amendments intended to improve the quality and accessibility of data submitted by public companies and mutual funds using XBRL. These changes, which are part of the SEC’s ongoing initiative to modernize the EDGAR system, would require the use of Inline XBRL.

On December 12, 2016, EDGAR 16.4 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release primarily contained updates for Form MA and Form ABS-EE.

The 2017 US GAAP Taxonomy is going to introduce some rather drastic changes to the way XBRL is prepared. While these changes are proposed for only a few small sections of the taxonomy for now, it looks like this is going to be the shape of things to come for XBRL.

Update: The November 2 XBRL US SEC Filer Workshop has been cancelled.

XBRL US is hosting a one-day workshop for SEC filers on Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at the AICPA offices in New York City. Topics covered by the workshop will include the changes to financial reporting that regulators are proposing, including the permitted use of Inline XBRL and revisions to disclosure requirements.

In XBRL as in other data reporting systems, calculations show relationships among data. Since XBRL defines calculations in this way without validating the accuracy of their results, it is important to examine the results of calculations in XBRL filings. Many preparers may assume that when a calculation does not add up, it is due to rounding, but this may not be a safe assumption.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has launched a public review for five new proposed validation rules. Additionally, the Data Quality Committee (DQC) has released proposed additions to the previous rule regarding inappropriate negative values.

With the SEC’s announcement that filers can now voluntarily submit Inline XBRL to EDGAR, you may be wondering what Inline XBRL is and whether you should make the switch. We’ll help you gain a better understanding of Inline XBRL and what ramifications - both good and bad - you may encounter should you choose to transition to it.

SEC staff recently released observations regarding registrants’ use of custom axis elements (or custom dimensions) in XBRL reports. The results of their analysis showed that while the overall use of custom axis elements has been declining since 2013, over half of all filers continue to use one or more custom axis elements in their annual reports.

On March 7, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated EDGAR to accept the US GAAP 2016 taxonomy among other new taxonomies. While this taxonomy should not be used for reports with a reporting period that ends before March 7, 2015, it’s a good idea to transition your SEC filings as soon as possible for reporting periods that end after March 7.

When the SEC moved their XBRL Viewer software to Python, the underlying architecture of the application changed significantly and now requires a bit more set up to get the software up and running. If you use GoFiler Complete or GoXBRL, our development team has integrated a script into our software to automatically install the XBRL Viewer for you. If you want to know how to install the XBRL Viewer on your own, read on.

The SEC has recently re-proposed Rule 13q-1 and an amendment to EDGAR Form SD to require the disclosure of payments made to governments by resource extraction issuers. Rule 13q-1 was previously adopted by the SEC in August of 2012 but was vacated by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after being challenged by the American Petroleum Institute (“API”), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and two other industry groups. Recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an order holding that the SEC unlawfully withheld agency action by not promulgating a final rule. Subsequently, the SEC filed an expedited schedule for promulgating the final rule, re-proposed Rule 13q-1 in SEC Release No 34-77620, and would vote on the adoption of a final rule in June 2016.