The XBRL Head Fake

Is XBRL (a) yet another new rule to comply with or (b) an investment that promises valuable returns to companies and shareholders alike?

Judging from recent surveys on XBRL awareness in the U.S., most finance and accounting executives would fail this quiz. The correct answer is (c) both.

By neglecting to treat the SEC's new XBRL mandate as more than a compliance requirement, publicly listed companies might fail to leverage one of the biggest breakthroughs in accounting in the past 75 years. What's more, shareholders, competitors, and much larger numbers of analysts will be able to spot this missed opportunity because XBRL provides a new window into the performance and future prospects of organizations of all sizes.

The technology -- which transforms financial reporting from a document-based process to a data-driven process -- will give smaller public companies in particular a greater opportunity to tell their stories to a larger audience. Some 5,000 small and microcap U.S. companies do not receive any type of analyst coverage, according to Phillip Moyer, CEO and president of EDGAR Online Inc., a business and financial information provider that has applied XBRL technology (mapping data tags to individual financial statement line items) to thousands of companies. Analyst coverage of midsize companies has also decreased in recent years, primarily because companies are required to report more information and "analysts are more likely to stick to companies where there is higher transparency," Moyer adds. From a financial reporting perspective, XBRL enables genuinely "fair disclosure" to analysts and shareholders as well as for companies of all sizes seeking funding.

The technology offers other benefits to companies. "What makes XBRL so exciting for me and the rest of the accounting industry is that this is the most significant advancement in financial reporting since the invention of double-entry accounting," says BearingPoint XBRL Practice Lead Brian Hankin, who also serves as the technical lead on his firm's work with the SEC on its $43 million effort to modernize the EDGAR system. "The benefits that we've seen from XBRL based on hundreds of large-scale global implementations include significant cost savings; faster, more reliable handling of data; improved analysis; and a higher quality of decision-making. XBRL is much more than just a financial reporting technology."