Written by Bob Schneider     Posted on August 15, 2008 

The dog days of August are upon us; but in the busy XBRL world, it’s hardly been lazy afternoons in the backyard and beer at the beach. If you’ve been vacationing at the lake or consumed with the Tampa Bay Rays, here’s a list of recent interactive data developments, materials, and announcements to bring you up to date.

(1) UBmatrix gave an excellent webinar on June 25 titled the SEC Mandate and Beyond. The initial presentation may well be familiar to you; within several minutes, however, you’ll hear a detailed talk on the specifics of the SEC’s proposed rule, as well as a discussion of key issues like the relative merits of the bolt-on versus embedded (or integrated) approach.

(2) As described in a post on the Bowne XBRL weblog, the Cleary Gottlieb law firm has put out a note on liability considerations in the SEC proposed rule. You may have to spend a little time registering to view it, but it’s time well spent. The note offers a detailed and informed perspective on liability questions, especially the issue of “raw” versus “viewable” XBRL data.

(3) Auerbach, Grayson – working with XBRL software company SavaNet – has become the “..first global broker to provide its global equity research reports in XBRL format…The application of the XBRL standard to research reports…allows for greater ease of access, interactive viewing, automated analysis and direct, hyper-detailed comparability.” It will be interesting to see if demand causes other equity research publishers to follow Auerbach, Grayson’s lead.

(4)  I don’t know how long it’s been on the Web, but KPMG has a well executed and, I think, extremely useful online XBRL course.  The course goes into much detail about the actual coding required to produce XBRL documents. It may take you a little while to learn how to navigate it; but for a more technical understanding of the workings of XBRL at no cost, it’s worth exploring. [UPDATE: Apparently the course has been around for a very long time. A reader writes in a Comment below that, although the course does a nice job of introducing many XBRL concepts, it is WAY out of date.]  

(5) The CoreFiling Taxonomy Library “bring[s] together over sixty individual public taxonomies from more than a dozen jurisdictions, including the recently completed US GAAP and IFRS 2008 taxonomies.” A how-to is provided with the actual library. It appears to be extremely well done. Charlie Hoffman’s favorable comments about the library are worth reading.  (BTW, I also liked this post of Charlie’s on how the US GAAP taxonomy allows accountants to better understand accounting.)

(6) Reviewing the comments on the SEC’s proposed rule, CFO.com finds that some companies are resisting the Commission’s timetable for XBRL adoption. WebCPA also has a piece on how New York CPAs are asking the SEC to hold off on a mandate for smaller firms.

(7) Two important fall conferences have been announced. The 18th XBRL International Conference will be held in Washington, DC on October 15-16. Perhaps not surprisingly, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox will be the keynote speaker.

The CFA Institute will be conducting a conference in London on September 26 titled XBRL for Investment Professionals. You can access online the list of speakers (which includes CFAI President Jeffrey Diermeier, as well Data Interactive guest bloggers Ralf Frank and David vun Kannon) and the brochure.

(8) The US GAAP Taxonomy – Tips, Tricks, and Traps, by Charlie Hoffman and Christine Tan, is another key document that can be added to the resources Neal and Mike provided in their post last week on getting ready for an XBRL mandate.

(9) Finally, the IFRS Taxonomy Modules Manager has been released. The IASC announcement describes its key features, and Gerald Trites at the XBRL Canada blog has a post about it. 

One item on the list that’s of particular interest is the comments the SEC has received on the proposed XBRL rule. Ed Hodder put up a post yesterday summarizing their contents. I’m reading through them too, and I’ll see if I can add anything useful to Ed’s note.
 

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