It’s 2011. Do you know where your interactive data is? If you’re one of the thousands of companies that have to submit their first financial reports tagged in XBRL to this summer, you ought to be preparing for that task now.
For those who need a reminder, a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that took effect in 2009 phased in a requirement for public companies and foreign private issuers that use U.S. GAAP to submit financials to the Commission tagged in interactive data, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language. The 500 largest issuers were required to submit their first XBRL-tagged filings in 2009. Another 1,200 large filers began tagging their reports last June. All other filers, including smaller reporting companies, must start submitting XBRL-tagged financials beginning with their periodic reports for fiscal years ending on or after June 15, 2011. That’s estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000 companies, says Emily Huang, co-founder and vice president of business technology at Rivet Software.
