Still too many Extensions?
The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) has compiled and analysed XBRL exhibits from US issuers that are submitting XBRL and Inline XBRL to that regulator. The analysis covers a three-year period, from March 2014 to December 2016.
The data shows a very modest contraction in the number of custom tags or “extensions” in use within the issuer community in the United States. As the SEC acknowledges, this capacity to customise can lead to unnecessary reductions in the comparability of company data.
Securities regulators that want full financial statements need to accept “extensions” in order to ensure that companies can disclose their narrative fully. However, agencies should seek to constrain the use of extensions, through a number of different techniques. Stay tuned! This topic will be an important one at Data Amplified.
DERA’s analysis is here.
