With the Securities and Exchange Commission applying increased pressure on publicly traded companies to enforce data-quality standards, Novaworks, a provider of SEC filing software, announced last week it will conduct XBRL no cost, data-quality reviews to ensure companies' annual reports are accurate and error-free.

All public companies must now report financial data to the SEC in XBRL format, a technology language based on XML that facilitates the electronic communication of financial data. The SEC had come under scrutiny for taking only limited actions to enforce XBRL data rules, which led to poor-quality interactive data that critics said was next to worthless to investors, analysts, and the public. Since then, the SEC has begun to ratchet up its XBRL oversight efforts.

Novaworks' data quality reviews are intended to not only help companies identify problems before they file, but also help improve the overall quality of interactive data available through the SEC’s EDGAR system. After signing up for an XBRL review at Novaworks’ website, public companies will receive a third-party analysis from a Novaworks expert, free of charge. Novaworks will inspect 10-K filings and uncover common technical, XBRL compliance or consistency errors that must be addressed prior to submitting to the SEC.

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