SEC's XBRL Voluntary Program on Edgar: The Case for Quality Assurance

Abstract:     
XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) was developed to provide users with an efficient and effective means of preparing and exchanging financial information over the Internet. After years of development, XBRL is now in the implementation stage, with many companies, governments, regulators, and stock exchanges around the world implementing or planning to adopt XBRL for electronic filing of financial statements. In this paper, we examine the XBRL fillings in the SEC's XBRL Voluntary Filing Program (VFP) on EDGAR from its inception to December 31, 2007 and report findings from our observations and validation tests. We identify persistent and increasing quality control and assurance issues pertaining to the filings under the VFP and discuss potential countermeasures needed to ensure that XBRL filings are reliable and gain user confidence and acceptance.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: XBRL, XBRL Voluntary Program on EDGAR, XBRL Quality Assurance Issues

working papers series