Staff Observations From Review of Interactive Data Financial Statements

The staff in the Commission’s Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation has completed a review of the Interactive Data Financial Statement submissions for compliance with the Commission’s rules relating to interactive data for financial reporting. Overall, the filings indicate that filers continue to devote significant effort to consider their responsibilities under this program, comply with the new rules and provide high-quality submissions.

To view the SEC Staff review, please visit: http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/xbrl/staff-review-observations-061511.shtml

The SEC will hold a public seminar June 4th beginning at 10:00 a.m. EDT to discuss the reporting rules and the XBRL taxonomy for open-end mutual funds.

The compliance date for open end mutual funds is January 1, 2011 and requires them to comply with new rules to file data in the risk/return summary section of the prospectus using XBRL.

The full SEC press release is available at: http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-71.htm

The SEC recently made changes to the Draft EDGAR Filing Manual(Version 14) to update the filer manual to reflect changes scheduled to take effect on April 12, 2010.

Some of the changes include:

• Submission form type 13F-HR/A will be suspended for any period end date where the filer has not submitted a 13F-HR initial filing for that period end date.
• Submission form type 13F-NT/A will be suspended for any period end date where the filer has not submitted a 13F-NT initial filing for that period end date.
• The EDGAR Interactive Data/XBRL validations will be extended to all EX-101 attachments regardless of the taxonomy used.
• The 2008 Mutual Fund Risk/Return Summary Taxonomy will be updated to the 2010 Mutual Fund Risk/Return Summary Taxonomy.
• Filings containing EX-101.INS XBRL document will undergo the following additional validations:
  • No more than one EX-101.INS XBRL document should be attached in a submission.
  • EX-101.INS XBRL documents should not contain non-empty facts for DocumentFiscalYearFocus and DocumentFiscalPeriodFocus in the required context, for the EDGAR form types specified in Section 6.5.21.
  • EX-101.INS XBRL documents should not contain HTML attributes “cite” “char” and “charoff” in the text blocks and footnotes.
• Form D validation and processing will be updated to allow filers to indicate if they have solicited sales in foreign countries and to disseminate state and country description in addition to the state and country code.
• The EDGARLite templates for Forms TA-1 and TA-2 are being updated to change the OMB expiration date to be “April 30, 2012” and “June 30, 2012” respectively.

The filer manual is also being revised to address minor changes previously made in EDGAR. On February 8, 2010, EDGAR Release 10.0 introduced the following changes:

• Submission form types 10KSB and 10KSB/A were removed from the EDGARLink Template 3.
• An effective date of February 28, 2010 was set for the use of 8-K Item 5.07 (Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders) on submission form types 8-K, 8-K/A, 8-K12B, 8-K12B/A, 8-K12G3, 8-K12G3/A, 8-K15D5, and 8-K15D5/A (See Release No. 33-9089).

Download the DRAFT EDGAR Filing Manual (Volume II) EDGAR Filing (Version 14)

The SEC just release information on an upcoming seminar which will include a webcast to help companies comply with XBRL reporting.  The full press release follows:

SEC Staff to Hold Seminar to Help Companies Comply With XBRL Reporting Rules

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2010-25

Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 2010 — Securities and Exchange Commission staff will conduct a public seminar next month to help companies and preparers comply with rules that require financial reports to be filed using eXtensible Business Reporting Language, (XBRL), which can provide investors quicker access to the data they want in a format that’s easily used, searched and analyzed.

The seminar will help answer frequently asked questions about the rules and technology requirements. SEC staff will present information to help corporate filers understand how to comply with the rules.

SEC staff also will provide an overview of the XBRL taxonomy — the list of tags associated with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP). Staff also will discuss the recently announced role of the Financial Accounting Foundation in maintaining that taxonomy in conjunction with its GAAP standard-setting activities. SEC staff will provide guidance on other tools and information available to assist with compliance.

To ensure that the seminar is responsive to the needs of companies and preparers, the SEC staff is seeking suggested questions and topics to be discussed at the seminar. Interested parties should e-mail their questions to Ask-OID@sec.gov and include “Public Education Seminar” in the subject line.

The seminar will be held on March 23 beginning at 1 p.m. ET in the auditorium at the SEC’s headquarters (100 F Street N.E. in Washington D.C.). The event also will be webcast on the SEC Web site.

Seating for the seminar will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities attending this event in person can be arranged by submitting a request to DisabilityProgramOfficer@SEC.gov three business days prior to the event. Captioning will provided on the SEC webcast.

For additional information about the seminar, contact Ask-OID@sec.gov or (202) 551-4144.

Adoption of Updated EDGAR Filer Manual

The SEC has released an updated EDGAR Filer Manual which supports changes made to the EDGAR system September 28, 2009 for Release 9.17 version on.

Revisions were made to improve the quality of XBRL exhibits as well as added XBRL validation requirements.

Additional information is available at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2009/33-9077.pdf

The updated EDGAR filer manual is available at: http://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/edmanuals.htm

Even though the SEC issued some last minute XBRL guidelines, most public companies that were required to file financial statements with new XBRL interactive data tags did so on time.

Read the article by Aliya Sterstein at: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090921_4858.php?oref=topstory

The SEC announced plans to update the EDGAR system on September 28, 2009. The update will include expanded technical requirements used to validate Interactive Data File (XBRL) files. The new validation process means XBRL files containing technical errors that were previously accepted by EDGAR may now be rejected. It is recommended that companies make plans to finalize XBRL exhibits long before filing deadlines to ensure they are compliant and able to file their reports.

To read the release, click here: http://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/ednews/edgar9.17xbrlvalidation.htm