The SEC’s XBRL Voluntary Filing Program on EDGAR: A Case for Quality Assurance

SUMMARY: XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) was developed to provide users with an efficient and effective means of preparing and exchanging business reporting, and especially 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 reports and other business documents and filings. In this paper, we examine the XBRL-Related Documents furnished to 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 XBRL-Related Documents furnished under the VFP and discuss potential countermeasures needed to ensure that XBRL-Related Documents are reliable and gain user confidence and acceptance.