The digital revolution in financial reporting is underway! Oh, um—you haven’t noticed yet?
The revolution began in earnest one year ago, when the Securities and Exchange Commission enacted a phased-in requirement that all registrants start filing financial statements using XBRL, a computer language to let software pluck out individual pieces of financial data and display them to investors. Accelerated filers with more than $5 billion in market capitalization began using XBRL for periods after June 15, 2009. Other accelerated filers will begin using XBRL for periods after June 15 of this year, and the rest will follow in 2011.
