Saeed Roohani is Professor of Accounting at Bryant University and one of the leading authorities on XBRL education. He is Program Chair of both the 9th Global XBRL Academic Competition and the 8th Bryant XBRL Conference to be held on October 13. The initial installment of our two-part interview was published as Part I; the second part appears below.

(8) In what ways does academic XBRL research affect the day-to-day activities of accounting practitioners, such as CFOs, comptrollers, and staff accountants? Or, to put it more bluntly, why should financial professionals in the field care about XBRL research?

Those of us who train individuals as accounting and financial professionals need to feel confident about what we teach and train, so we need to know to what extent XBRL will help companies, regulators, investors, and creditors. Research supplies the evidence to support those assertions.  In that respect, financial professionals have a vested interest in knowing the extent to which XBRL is useful and other possible benefits of XBRL reporting.

True, it is sometimes hard to match exactly XBRL academic research with the everyday activities of an accounting practitioner. But it would be a mistake for CFOs and comptrollers not to be interested in XBRL research. At a minimum, research is an independent assessment of what goes in the real world..

(9) One of your particular research interests is continuous auditing. What role can  XBRL serve in implementing continuous auditing? Does XBRL have specific qualities that make it peculiarly suited for continuous auditing needs?

One major reason I got involved in continuous auditing (CA) was to clarify that existing CA models and approaches presented in the literature would face major challenges if applied in the context of the independent audit of financial statements.

There’s two main reasons for that. First, you cannot really be independent if you as an auditor stay with the client on a continuous basis.  Also, you would have to create an audit module and install it in a client’s computer system, and this is prohibited under Sarbanes-Oxley.

It is now established that CA is best suited for internal auditing, as opposed to external auditing.  XBRL GL is mainly focused on internal reporting and auditing.  Also, XML facilitates the communication of disparate systems within a company where the only solution used to be implementing a new ERP system.  With disparate systems, internal auditors have to audit input and output of each system separately, and make the reconciliation. So XBRL is peculiarly suited for internal CA needs because all systems today can communicate in XML, and thus XBRL.

(10) What impact do you think the adoption of an integrated approach (as opposed to a bolt-on approach) for implementing XBRL will have on a company’s system of internal control? 

Internal controls deal with business rules and internal operations of an entity, and companies are required by law to have adequate internal controls in place. If I understand the question correctly, the integrated approach is more suitable to meeting objectives of internal controls, because such controls and their intensity vary from organization to organization and from industry to industry.

(11) What effect do you believe an XBRL mandate will have on US capital markets?  Do you believe it will help smaller companies gain valuable exposure and help reduce their cost of capital? Or do you think the impact will be slight?

Like anything new, the initial impact will be huge and worldwide.  However, it is not an event to which one may want to measure stock market reaction. One major argument for XBRL reporting is that we will have more transparency, and more transparency allows investors to reward (i.e., buy the stocks of) companies that are willing to share timely and reliable information.  XBRL provides a digital and real time information communication mechanism to the investing community; but the company’s CFO still decides what to disclose and to what extent to be transparent.

It is important to recognize that XBRL does not force CFOs to disclose more than what they want.  On the other hand, experience suggests that investors punish companies that are not transparent and have weak corporate governance.

I think smaller companies eager to grow stand to gain more from adopting XBRL because they have to get on the radar of analysts, who will be using XBRL for comparing performance indicators.  Also, even a small company may want to operate at a global level, and most exchanges and regulators around the world are now looking toward XBRL reporting.

(12) You’ve been involved with XBRL almost since its inception. As you look back over the past ten years or so, has anything surprised you, for example, in the course of its development or the pace of its adoption?

Yes, it took us a bit longer than expected. But now that we have a better and robust business reporting standard, perhaps we have secured future success.  In terms of organization and the human factor, XBRL has moved from being mostly a volunteer-based community to mostly a consultant-based community.  For example, at earlier conferences we had dinners at local restaurants with everybody knowing each other and having cozy chats. XBRL conferences are now so big that dinners are often in big ballrooms!  I miss the old times!

Written by Daniel Roberts     Posted on September 24, 2008

Daniel Roberts is the former Chairman, XBRL-US Steering Committee, and member of the AICPA and XBRL International working groups on assurance over XBRL. He is the former National Director of Assurance Innovation for a Global Six accounting firm. Mr. Roberts can be reached by email.

This is the first installment of his two-part article on XBRL and the assurance function; the second half will be published next week.

Background

About two years ago, the CFO of a large firm told me that his company would not participate in the SEC’s XBRL Voluntary Filing Program (VFP) until he had assurance regarding the XBRL that his firm would provide to the SEC.  He knew that the SEC did not require assurance, and that the XBRL would be “furnished not filed.” Nonetheless, he would not publicly participate until he knew that his financial reports in XBRL would not contain any errors.

He did this by having his staff perform their own assurance engagement based on the guidance provided by the PCAOB in 2005. When I asked him why, he said “It’s not the SEC that requires the assurance; I require the assurance”.

Earlier this year, the SEC released a Proposed Rule recommending a timetable for the adoption of XBRL for reporting by SEC registrants.  Notably missing from the recommendations is the requirement for reports provided in this new format to be audited or reviewed as is required for current SEC filings.

Participants in the SEC’s existing VFP are not required to have any assurance provided over their VFP filings. At the Interactive Data Roundtable on March 19, 2007, Chairman Cox said that to require assurance over these filings would be “crib death” for the voluntary program, and potentially for the XBRL initiative (see page 59 of the transcript).

Still smarting from their terrible underestimate of the costs that Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) would impose on businesses, the SEC has taken every opportunity to emphasize the low cost of XBRL implementation.  The shock of SOX assurance costs, and the fact that such costs for XBRL are such an unknown, have probably been the major reasons for the SEC to avoid the subject of assurance over XBRL.

At the same time, primarily from a lack of a deep understanding of XBRL by their professional standards groups and what I’ll call “standards overload,” the accounting industry also has not developed guidance on how to provide assurance over XBRL.

This lack of clarity has resulted in a lack of guidance for industry as a whole, and it is leading some people to state that assurance over XBRL filings will not be required, that auditing firms will not want to provide that assurance, or that filing companies will be unwilling to request or pay for such assurance.

For regulators and investors, the XBRL “version” of the financial statements will most likely become the primary version, or at least the version that investors will rely on.  As a result, a failure to provide an audit opinion on the version of the financial statements that are used as primary statements by the investor community would certainly undermine the very assumption that there is a need for an audit in the first place.

Auditor Conservatism

Auditors by nature are a conservative, cautious bunch.  Not only are they trained to be, but their standards specifically state that they are required to be. When companies fail, shareholders, clients, and creditors frequently go looking for the deepest pockets…and that includes the auditors. All firms carry significant reserves for potential legal costs, knowing that any claim, even if not supported by a court, can still result in millions of dollars in costs to the firm.

And — of course — there is the still-fresh memory of the collapse of Andersen, one of their peers.  All the major firms are now homes to large numbers of former Andersen partners and staff; to these individuals, caution and risk are both real, and have had a painful impact on them.

The best way to minimize the risk of a lawsuit is to ensure that the auditor has traced all financial statement figures all the way back to source transactions.  Needless to say this is not possible, and therefore the concept of “materiality” comes into play.  All “material” financial statement figures will be confirmed to a level of granularity where the auditor can have some confidence that the figures are accurate.

When considering the work to be performed by the auditor, there is a natural desire, from the perspective of minimizing their risk, to expand the scope of audit work to cover as much potential risk as possible.

XBRL as a New Risk

New technology brings new risks. If there is anything that is certain, it is that the introduction of XBRL, a new reporting technology that today is rather poorly understood by either the auditor or the filer, will be viewed as an area of significant potential additional risk. Auditing standards professionals in the accounting and auditing firms will understand the risk (or at least understand the uncertainty associated with new technologies applied to financial reporting.)

When XBRL becomes mandatory, the auditor that says “Okay, we’ll only audit the HTML version of the financial statements” will be taking on a huge level of risk.  As a result, we should expect the professional standards and risk management functions within the auditing firms will insist on auditing the XBRL as well, or they will refuse to provide an opinion on the rest of the financial statements in any other format.

It’s a smarter position.  Picture a future courtroom.  On the stand is the audit partner who signed off on the opinion.  “Can you please tell the court why you chose not to audit the information that your own literature has been saying for years will be the information that will actually be used by the investor to make investment decisions?”  I doubt that is a question that any audit partner will want to have to answer.

It stands to reason we should expect auditors will take the most cautious approach when presented with the question of whether to audit the XBRL or not to audit the XBRL.

Written by David vun Kannon     Posted on September 17, 2008

David vun Kannon was one of the first Co-Chairs of the XBRL Specification Working Group and has been an Editor of every version of the XBRL Specification. He is a Director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP.

These are exciting times in the XBRL community. We can see uses of XBRL growing around the world, more companies becoming involved, and more being written about XBRL.

But instead of shouting “I’m king of the world!,” I think now would be a great time for a little reality check.

There are some odd traditions in the computer science field. One of them is reusing titles of well known papers and books. One of the classic papers that pushed us along the road to better coding practices was titled “GOTO Considered Harmful” (not a caution against any Japanese person named Goto, but against so-called spaghetti code). Another classic title is “What Computers Can’t Do,” which attacked the symbol-manipulating tradition in Artificial Intelligence.

Now, the title “What XBRL Can’t Do” is cool in a geeky kind of way, but what I’d like to talk about is more like “What XBRL Isn’t Even Interested In Doing, and Doesn’t Try.”

The B and the R of XBRL really define its scope, and it is important to realize that XBRL has a scope, and that the scope is not infinite. B is for Business — this drives the existence of the fact context. For every fact in an XBRL instance there is an entity, a time period, and a scenario for which that fact is true. XBRL is terrible for representing abstract math. 2+2=4 requires no entity, period, or scenario. So MathML is safe from encroachment by XBRL.

The R stands for Reporting. XBRL is not about transactions. OK, so what is reporting and what is a transaction? Here is a simple heuristic. Take whatever it is that you are trying to use XBRL for, and write it out as a sentence:

“The assets of Mumble, LLC on Dec 31, 2005, were $7.”
“On Dec 31, 2008, Mumble, LLC calls the outstanding 7 3/4 bonds of 2015.”

The first example uses a stative verb — it is reporting a fact.
The second example uses an active verb — it is a transaction. If I changed “calls” to “buys” the transaction would change from a corporate action to a more familiar market operation, but it would still be a transaction.

So there are a large number of transactional XML languages — FpML, EBXML, etc. — that are safe from encroachment from XBRL

I hope no one thinks I want to restrict XBRL to just financial reporting. I don’t. There are lots of other kinds of reporting that I think are important — internal controls, corporate social responsibility, and health care are examples. XBRL could be applied fruitfully in all of these areas, because they are valid examples of reporting.

Also, reporting frequently shows up inside transactions as part of an object description. So there is a place for XBRL as a part of a transactional system if the application needs a very capable description format. Using XBRL when the object descriptions are fixed would be overkill.

There is still a lot of “low hanging fruit” in the areas of reporting and metadata management. Enough that we don’t have to go picking someone else’s cherries!

Written by Gary Purnhagen     Posted on September 12, 2008

Gary Purnhagen has more than 20 years’ experience in helping firms in diverse industries meet document processing challenges, including SEC disclosure. His engagements have included responding to the SEC’s EDGAR program, use of the Internet and other digital media for information dissemination, and most recently XBRL. He is an independent consultant assisting firms in embracing innovation and responding to the SEC’s pending mandate of XBRL.

I’ve been reading with interest the various takes on the SEC’s press conference introducing IDEA last month. They generally range from “ho-hum” to “there isn’t much substance,” and that EDGAR will be around for some time. EDGAR will be around for a while, just like travel agents are still around. I don’t use them anymore, but I’m sure others do. I like the value and convenience of Travelocity or Orbitz. They provide me with a better model than visiting or calling a travel agent. And I suspect that IDEA will in fact be a far better model than EDGAR is for most consumers of disclosure information.

I cannot deny that the timing of the press conference coincided with the end of the formal comment period for the SEC proposed rule for mandating XBRL. And this announcement certainly had a PR component. Nevertheless, my take is that the SEC is assuming that disclosure information will be tagged with XBRL and is planning on taking advantage of how this enabling technology can change the model of disclosure.

Up until the unveiling of IDEA, I viewed XBRL as the full realization of EDGAR. With EDGAR we had the Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval but no Analysis. XBRL alone will give us the ability to automate analysis but EDGAR is based within the context of disclosure via documents; access to the information would still have been awkward. To the SEC’s credit, they are moving far beyond the old model to a platform that will allow new ways of interacting with the information as we wish and have yet to envision. IDEA puts XBRL into a larger context and the committee that Professor William Lutz is heading up, 21st Century Disclosure Initiative, will give us the direction for IDEA.

Dr. Lutz has stated that his group is starting with a blank page and asking the questions of what information do we want, how do we want it, and how should the SEC provide it. This is innovation at its finest. It is taking advantage of new technology to not just mimic the old way of doing things with some improvements, but rather realizing the full power of XBRL as an enabling technology and imagining how it can improve how we work with this information. All of this helps to further the argument for the rulemaking for XBRL.

IDEA also makes economic sense. The SEC is spending $48 million on the current EDGAR system contract. Much of the data that is gathered, stored, and retrieved is useless information. IDEA will streamline the data mining that takes place and the applications that will be created will have easier interfaces for small investors.

I began this article by mentioning most writers were skeptical of the whole IDEA concept. One observer who I think not only got it right but has been providing us with glimpses on where IDEA and XBRL will take us is John Turner of CoreFiling. You can read his articles on the topic at his Insight blog.

Written by Neal Hannon     Posted on September 9, 2008

Neal Hannon is an XBRL consultant and the former Director, Financial Reporting Technologies for the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF).  Active in the XBRL community since 2000, he served on the first XBRL US steering committee and has written over 60 articles on XBRL. You can contact him by email.

An initial review of the public responses from large company preparers to the SEC’s proposed rule on interactive data indicates a hint of fear surrounding the detailed or deep tagging of notes to the financial statements.  The current proposed rule calls for “block” tagging in year one.  However, in year two the SEC is asking companies to provide detailed tagging for the notes to financial statements.

Here’s the relevant text from the proposed rule:

We are therefore proposing that the footnote disclosures in the traditional format filing be the same as in the interactive data format. This would be accomplished by tagging the footnotes using four different levels of detail:

(i) each complete footnote tagged as a single block of text;
(ii) each significant accounting policy within the significant accounting policies footnote tagged as a single block of text;
(iii) each table within each footnote tagged as a separate block of text; and
(iv) within each footnote, each amount (i.e., monetary value, percentage, and number) separately tagged and each narrative disclosure required to be disclosed by U.S. GAAP (or IFRS as issued by the IASB, if applicable), and Commission regulations separately tagged.

At Level IV, which is applicable to all companies after their initial year of block tagging, the proposed rule requires companies to deeply tag every footnote.  Within each note, any monetary value, percentage, or number will need to have an XBRL tag applied.

Additionally, whenever authoritative GAAP literature or Commission regulations require a company to disclose something, that item will need to be separately tagged.  If the company is following IFRS, as issued by the IASB, those disclosures will also need to be tagged.  Companies may also want to expose additional information contained in detailed footnotes that go above and beyond US GAAP requirements.

So going deep into tagging means preparing an XBRL tag for:

1. Each and every number, monetary value, percentage, etc. normally contained within a footnote;
2. All GAAP required disclosures; and
3. Company-specific disclosures that go beyond GAAP requirements

XBRL US has several examples of Level IV tagging. The notes for the 3M Company and Bank of Hawaii are particularly useful in demonstrating Level IV tagging.

The Problem with Going Deep

To get an idea of the perceived magnitude of the problem, here are a few selected quotes from the comments in response to the proposed rule:

(a) “We believe that the detailed footnote tagging requirement will require an order-of-magnitude increase in the effort required to comply with this aspect of the proposed rule.”

(b) “If the Proposed Rule is adopted, a permanent, not a temporary, exception for detailed tagging of financial statement footnotes should be allowed due to the volume of information in the footnotes, the complexity of the information, and the required time it would take to properly tag that information.”

(c) “In addition, each amount (i.e., monetary value, percentage, and number) within each footnote would be required to be separately tagged (level (iv)). At this proposed level of detail, we estimate that approximately 5,400 data elements would be required to be tagged in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for FirstEnergy and its registrant subsidiaries when the proposed rule takes full effect.”

(d) “When the rule takes full effect under the current proposal, we estimate that Southern Company and its five subsidiary registrants would be required to tag approximately 6,800 data elements on the Form 10-K, many of which are company-specific items requiring taxonomy extensions.”

(e) “The company has observed from its VFP participation that the most detailed level of tagging results in a high number of company-specific extensions and the need to create a large extended taxonomy file along with related linkbase files. A number of footnote disclosures (i.e. Share-Based Payments, Postemployment Benefits, Business Combinations and Segment Reporting), often containing multi-dimensional tables, lend themselves to a higher degree of company customization.”

(f) “However, we observed from our experience in the VFP with detail tagging of footnotes, that the SEC’s 100 hour estimate to detail tag the first filing in year two could be understated by as much as three to four times. Selected disclosures (multi-dimensional in nature) require significant effort in creating custom extended link roles and related presentation, calculation and definition linkbases.”

(g) “We estimate that performing detailed footnote tagging of our annual financial statements as authored in the Proposed Rule would result in approximately 2,500 tagged elements compared to approximately 500 tags required to meet the year one requirements.”

Clearly, there is plenty of angst when it comes to Level IV tagging.  The activity may take huge amounts of coordination between legal teams, accounting experts, and preparers of financial statements, all taking place during the time-constrained closing process. The question we need to examine is, What is the best way for a company to comply with Level IV tagging?

Completing the Deep Route

As a new US professional football season gets under way, many teams are concerned with the threat of the deep pass.  What is the best defense?  When it comes to deep tagging, a good compliance approach will work as well as any NFL defense coordinator’s game plan.

Here’s where to start. First and foremost, to successfully carry out deep tagging will require an accounting team with skills in XBRL tagging, accounting know-how, and plenty of collaboration with the legal department as well as both the internal and external auditors.  If a team starts with an XBRL software tool that permits the tagging to be accomplished as a normal part of the closing process, the entire effort will be significantly reduced.  Remember, getting the tagging right is a matter of properly matching management’s accounting intent to the likely accounting interpretation of the chosen XBRL tags.  This is best done during the normal closing cycle, not as an additional task tacked on at the end.

Although most of the information contained within a detailed note to a financial statement remains the same, accounting rules and interpretations can frequently change. Each disclosure is carefully reviewed for each new 10-Q and 10-K report.  With the SEC requesting Level IV tagging, slight changes to the wording of a disclosure require a re-tagging of the note in XBRL.

Features to look for in an XBRL tool for Level IV tagging include:

(1) The ability to handle dimensions (multi-axis displays of data such as sales by region and/or by product line)

(2) The ability to customize the entry points into the US GAAP taxonomy, which reduces the processing load of handling 15,000-plus element relationships in the taxonomy

(3) A compliance suite environment that includes audit trails, collaboration, importation of accounting check lists, work flow management and automatic roll forward to the next reporting period

(4) In-line XBRL so that the entire management team can see how the footnotes are tagged and how they look in context with the actual SEC filing.

(5) Easy access to authoritative references and definitions located inside the US GAAP taxonomy’s reference linkbase.

Preparation Is Key

There is no need to fear the deep tagging process of Level IV.  Tagging detailed disclosures to Level IV is a process that will consume significant time and energy from the entire financial reporting team.  Great preparation, selection of the right tool, and great execution will result, as it often does in the NFL, in a winning deep-tagging effort.

Saeed Roohani is Professor of Accounting at Bryant University and one of the leading authorities on XBRL education. He is Program Chair of both the 9th Global XBRL Academic Competition and the 8th Bryant XBRL Conference to be held on October 13. The first part of our two-part interview with Professor Roohani appears below; Part II contains questions eight through twelve.

(1) Along with Eric Cohen, you have been the driving force behind the Global XBRL Academic Competition since its inception eight years ago. What have been the significant trends in XBRL research over the past eight years? Or, put another way, what changes have you seen in the direction of XBRL research?

The major changes have been in the quality of research and the sophistication of research questions.  Earlier, most people were mostly addressing whether the financial community is “aware” of opportunities offered by XBRL – basically, a descriptive approach.  Now we see XBRL research that addresses implementation, value proposition issues, and internationalization.  The XBRL research articles are now more than descriptive, and include case studies and empirical studies.  We also see some articles exploring opportunities for XBRL GL.

(2) Which of the Competition’s projects do you think have contributed most to the development of XBRL?

It is hard to say any single one contributed more than any other.  It seems that every year the projects submitted by students follow different challenges and opportunities for XBRL; the projects generally vary with new XBRL applications and implementations around the world.  Overall, projects exhibiting new and promising applications of XBRL (e.g., continuous auditing) and the development of taxonomies for certain jurisdictions or countries have been rated highly by judges.

(3) Which subject areas do you believe are most fertile for future XBRL research?

I would answer this question by referring to the advantages that we in the XBRL community have stated over the years, namely, that XBRL makes business reporting faster, cheaper, and better.  We now have access to XBRL data reported by firms, so it’s time to get academics involved in the emprirical testing of various propositions about XBRL.  Will XBRL help continuous (more frequent) reporting where information becomes immediately available to the market upon release? Is there evidence that all parties in the supply-chain will benefit from standardized business reporting? These are the kinds of questions that should be explored.

(4) What is the state of XBRL education at the college level right now? Are separate courses in XBRL offered in few, many, or most college accounting programs? Or is XBRL incorporated as part of the curriculum within existing accounting courses?

I know most accounting textbooks mention XBRL and describe its goals. However, I’m not sure whether the coverage is enough to generate discussion about the usefulness of XBRL and its applications.  Two of my colleagues have been offering day-long XBRL workshops at the annual American Accounting Association for the past four or five years. At my school, Bryant University, we have an annual XBRL conference that encourages participation of academics, as well as the Global XBRL Academic Competition.

So there have been a lot of opportunities for academics to get involved in research and education.  However, many faculty and students automatically assume XBRL is a “technology thing,” not an accounting, reporting, or auditing subject.  The fact is that XBRL is more about financial accounting and auditing than technology itself!

With worldwide adoption of XBRL now demanded by many regulators, I have noticed much more interest in XBRL research and education.  Among the courses I teach at Bryant are XBRL reporting and its application, and I know a dozen more accounting faculty at other universities worldwide who cover XBRL and XBRL GL in a meaningful way in their courses. I am not aware of a course totally dedicated to XBRL, and I don’t expect it either.  I anticipate XBRL to be an active component of upper level accounting courses

(5) Let’s say a sophomore walks into your office who is committed to an accounting career and asks you what he or she should know about XBRL. How would you respond? Would you advise him or her that a general familiarity with the language is sufficient for prospective accountants? Or do you think being able to understand XBRL code – or actually write it – will give new accountants a huge advantage over their peers?

Actually, I’ve already been asked those kinds of questions.  One of my summer interns told me his boss asked him to investigate what XBRL is and find out how much he (i.e., his boss) should know about XBRL.  I recommended some of the introductory materials available on the web, including the various resources mentioned at XBRLeducation.com.

I think most accounting students won’t get involved in the mechanics of XBRL tagging, as software tools will do this. However, verifying the appropriateness of the tags, the use of proper taxonomy, authentication of XBRL documents, and knowledge of the XBRL filings required for regulators — all of these will be important to all accounting students.  My understanding is that XBRL is now part of the CPA exam, so students should at least be familiar with it.

(6) For financial professionals in the field, what advice would you give them regarding learning XBRL? How much XBRL knowledge do you believe they will need to do their jobs successfully and build their careers?

I would give the same advice to financial professionals.  In addition, financial professionals, such as analysts who develop financial models for clients, now have to be more knowledgeable about XBRL if they wish to absorb new and timely information generated by XBRL and available online.  XBRL allows a continuous flow of financial information on the web; this demands new and hybrid financial models to help their clients.

Depending on their specialty, financial professionals should be familiar with the applicable XBRL taxonomy for the entity, how to create an instance document with XBRL tools, and XBRL regulatory reporting requirements.

At this time, XBRL is basically focused on external reporting and so not much on management accounting.  However, XBRL GL is the XBRL link to internal reporting and auditing.  The prize winning student project of the Global XBRL Academic Competition in 2005/06 was about XBRL GL and continuous/internal auditing.

(7) What is the status of XBRL education in the US compared with that in other countries? Do you think the US is a leader or a laggard in XBRL education?

This question is difficult to answer.  Initially, it seems there was more XBRL awareness in U.S. educational outlets such as the American Accounting Association. Also, the adoption of XBRL by the FDIC generated some interest among U.S. academics. Then XBRL adoption took off a bit faster in other countries, such as Japan and Australia.

Interestingly enough, many emerging economies — somewhat motivated by the recognition opportunities accompanying XBRL — were eager to create XBRL-interest groups or adopt XBRL for external reporting. In most of these countries, college professors in accounting or finance have direct or indirect influence on accounting and financial reporting innovations and regulation.  In the past three months I have received several proposals from junior faculty or PhD students who reside in countries like China, Turkey, and Egypt and who have full scholarships to come to Bryant University for the purpose of XBRL education and research.