XBRL Update

Baruch held its 5th annual XBRL conference yesterday and there is some news to report. We are only 33 days away from the first large scale filings of 10-K’s and 10-Q’s in XBRL format. The SEC requires that all companies with a market cap over $5 billion (about 500 or so companies) begin filing in XBRL for their fiscal quarter ending June 15th. Other large accelerated filers, about 1200 companies, must begin filing in 2010 and small cap companies in 2011.

Companies must make the filings available on their web sites as well as filing with the SEC. David Blaszkowsky, the director of the SEC’s Office of Interactive Data, reported that 26 companies have already filed, even some small and mid-cap companies that are not yet required to use XBRL. The SEC rules require that all 10-K’s, 10-Q’s, 8-K’s or 6-K’s that revise or update financial statement data, as well as Registration Statements be filed in XBRL.

Our students can access the reports through the database EDGAR Online or use IDEA, the SEC’s new EDGAR filing database. Reports filed in IDEA are clearly identified with a format label saying either ‘document’ or ‘interactive data.’ The financial statements filed in XBRL can be downloaded to Excel.