Last Thursday the SEC Chairmen Christopher Cox announced that the combined market capitalization of companies submitting interactive data financial reports to the SEC has surpassed $2 trillion. 7 companies have joined over the last 3 months bringing the total voluntary group to just 40.

“The continued positive feedback from our enthusiastic group of test filers means that interactive disclosure is well on its way to becoming reality,” said Chairman Cox. “Investors in the future will have instant, user-friendly access to company disclosures that are far more accurate than anything that is possible with today’s EDGAR.”

Interactive data refers to financial information provided using XBRL (”eXtensible Business Reporting Language”) or any other computer software language that labels companies’ financial data with codes from standard lists called “taxonomies” so that investors and analysts can more easily locate and analyze desired information in a public company’s financial statements.

This milestone is one of many related to XBRL and there is sure to be more in the near future.  XBRL (aka interactive data) is an important trend in disclosure and is one of the main elements in transforming how market analysts and ordinary investors obtain and use financial information.

Interactive disclosure is an important trend for us here at Q4 and is impacting many of our soon to be released products. Look for XBRL based disclosure extensions to show up in Q4 PRESS in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, XBRL, Disclosure, Disclosure Risk, Disclosure Risk Management, Q4 PRESS

Being an on-demand software company we are committed to providing the tools and services that help our clients achieve their goals as they relate to their web sites, disclosure and compliance. Having said that, Q4 WEB provides a long list of benefits for issuers outside of its ability to help clients reduce compliance risk. Here is a list of top 10 non-compliance benefits:

1. Complete flexibility
Q4 WEB provides the ability to easily manage all aspects of your web site. This includes easily updating how information is presented on your site, where it is displayed and replicated throughout your site. Because of how the system is designed there is a complete separation between the presentation (what the user sees) and the rest of the system. This means that you are never tied into a design or layout. As your needs change you can easily implement these changes through Q4 WEB. No matter how you are thinking about improving your site – design, content, layout, features – you can use Q4 WEB to easily achieve it.

2. Automated work flow
Built into Q4 WEB is a powerful workflow engine that helps to move content through drafting, reviewing and approval stages. Email notifications with actionable detail and comments are sent to appropriate individuals to respond. This helps in getting content approved and onto the site faster than through standard methods. Also feedback and comments are maintained over time so that conversations regarding changes are evident and easily accessible.

3. Manage multiple web sites
Does your company maintain more than one site? Using Q4 WEB you have the ability to easily manage all sites from the same system. These sites can exist on different domain names and have completely different designs. Also, content can be shared across multiple sites. For example content such as management bios, press releases or events can be managed in one location and easily distributed across all of your sites.

4. Integrated multiple languages
Q4 WEB gives you the ability to easily manage multiple languages on your site. There is no restriction on the type of languages, Q4 WEB works with all of them. It also provides the ability for content to be mirrored or separate. Meaning the exact content is available in different languages or completely separate and independent. AND by using the workflow aspects of Q4 WEB your translator can be instantly notified when new content is available for translation – helping you get more done in less time.

5. Seamless integration with various data feeds
Most clients of Q4 WEB utilize data feeds to speed the posting of key information such as press releases, regulatory filings and performance data. Q4 WEB integrates all data feeds available in the market. Whether you obtain feeds from a large company, from Q4 or from a small vendor Q4 WEB easily consumes, maintains records and displays this information in whatever format you determine is most effective for your audience.

6. Easily create mini-sites for M&A activity or similar events
Do you need to create a special deal site for a corporate action taking place? Do you need to create it quickly without disclosing any information to the public? Using Q4 WEB these sites can be easily created and managed with only your internal resources. This means more control and confidentiality for your company. Using our tool, this entire site can then be timed to go live with other related events – such as a press release.

7. Full site preview
When previewing changes in Q4 WEB you are taken to a “preview site” that is a fully functioning staging site that includes all changes that are currently pending. When previewing in competitive systems what you are presented with is a constricted view – or just the content on the page you are working on. Using Q4 WEB, you are able to make an unlimited number of changes to content, layout, design, etc and to preview all of them without impacting the live site. AND you can share this preview with others to receive feedback prior to publishing anything to the live site.

8. Integrated email alerts and subscriber management
Q4 WEB allows you to segment and manage email subscriber lists according to a variety of variables. You have the ability to create segmented lists and to send both email alerts and manual email newsletters to any of those lists. In multilingual sites, users can also specify language preferences for the information they want to receive (for example as a press release is uploaded in the second language, it would then be distributed to subscribers who had requested alerts for this language). Email alerts can easily be configured against any type of content in the system. Clients typically choose to enable alerts for items such as press releases, reports, events, presentations, etc..

9. On-Demand service and architecture
Also known as software as a service, On-Demand means that Q4 WEB is delivered through the web as a subscription model. All IT related activities and costs are included in the service delivery. This includes: enterprise class redundant web site hosting, SAS 70 Type II certification, 24/7 extensive monitoring and alerting, 24/7 customer support, scheduled back-ups and disaster recovery, regular code maintenance and application performance upgrades.

10. A focused and committed technology partner
Q4 is a software company 100% focused on increasing efficiency in helping you communicate better while providing you with the tools that you need to consistently improve your communication with shareholders. Since our inception in 2005 we have continued to expand our services to help our clients achieve more by using our software to automate manual tasks and provide the flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions. Q4 gives you the tools and the service that you can rely on.

In addition to the list above there are many additional benefits that Q4 WEB provides for companies that exist in specific industries including natural resources and financial services. But we’ll leave that for another post.

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, IR Web Sites, Disclosure, Bill 198, Civil Liability, Sarbanes Oxley, RegFD

Through our expanding data relationships we are now able to offer data across the majority of European exchanges. With an increasing number of our clients trading in European markets we are pleased to be able to offer this expanded set of data.

Outside of North American exchanges we can now provide:

- London Stock Exchange (including AIM) 
- Euronext Exchanges - Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon
- Borsa Italiana
- Deutsche Borse
- Swiss Exchange
- RTS - Russian Trading System Stock Exchange
- MICEX - Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange
- Athens Stock Exchange
- Virt-X
- Irish Stock Exchange
- Stockholm
- Oslo
- Copenhagen
- Helsinki
- Madrid
- Vienna
- Luxembourg
- Stuttgart (EUWAX)
- German Regional Markets - Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, Munchen

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, European Exchanges, Stock Quotes

As part of our ongoing effort to improve and upgrade our infrastructure I’m pleased to announce that the new Q4 data center is now fully redundant and SAS 70 TYPE II certified.

SAS 70 is an internationally recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Our data center’s SAS 70 certification enables us to further our expansion into the enterprise market by delivering certification of the controls needed for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

This certification deals with the controls related to service delivery, operations, infrastructure maintenance, change management, backup of programs and data files and logical and physical data center access.

Over the next couple of months we’ll be transitioning all clients over to the new data centre. Q4 has always provided a highly secure service delivery but now our customers will feel even more confident that our services are safe, secure, reliable and compliant with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley.

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Disclosure, Disclosure controls, Compliance, SAS 70, Sarbanes Oxley, Investor Relations, IR Web Sites

Last week BFI Income Fund (TSX: BFC.UN) went live on Q4 WEB. We’re thrilled to add BFI to our growing list of clients looking to increase the efficiency of managing their corporate web site disclosure.

“We are very excited to be using Q4’s content and disclosure management system to easily manage and control changes to our corporate website,” stated Chaya Cooperberg, Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications for BFI Canada Income Fund.  “In today’s regulatory environment, it is very advantageous and reassuring that the system automatically tracks and logs all changes and approvals, ensuring greater protection and compliance. We were extremely impressed with Q4’s ability to smoothly implement their solution in conjunction with our site re-design, and we are pleased to be at the forefront of using this technology.”  

BFI’s web site can be found at: http://www.bfi.ca/

Full Press Release

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Investor Relations, IR Web Sites, Disclosure, Compliance

Yesterday the CSA formally launched their XBRL voluntary filing program that was announced back in January. Here’s the press release from OSC’s web site.  

Toronto - The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced today the launch of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) voluntary filing program. The voluntary program will help the Canadian marketplace gain practical knowledge and experience preparing and using financial statements in XBRL format.

XBRL is an emerging business reporting language designed to make it easier for investors and analysts to quickly access data and analyze information from a greater number of companies. When using XBRL, “tags” are assigned to pieces of data, and these tags provide information about what the data represents. For the voluntary program, the pieces of data are the content of financial statements, such as revenue or net income.

“We believe this technology will be a great step forward in helping investors analyze financial information, ” said Jean St-Gelais, Chair of the CSA and President & Chief Executive Officer of the Autorité des marchés financiers (Québec). “We are confident that the Canadian marketplace will recognize the benefits to investors of filing in XBRL format.”

The CSA will make the XBRL financial statements available to the public through SEDAR.com. The website links to the CSA’s XBRL website, which contains more information about XBRL and the voluntary program. Issuers wishing to participate in the voluntary program should contact one of the CSA staff members listed on this website: www.csa-acvm.ca/html_CSA/xbrl.html.

The CSA, the council of the securities regulators of Canada’s provinces and territories, co-ordinates and harmonizes regulation for the Canadian capital markets.

Technorati Tags: Disclosure, SOX, XBRL, Corporate reporting, Q4 Web Systems, Q4

According to the Financial Times, Christopher Cox announced yesterday that the SEC is going to formalize a new rule to require all companies to report financial information in XBRL.

This is not surprising, especially considering the consistent messages we’ve been hearing from Cox regarding the benefits of interactive data (aka XBRL) it seemed just a matter of time until it was to be mandated. As of today there’s been no mentioned about when this rule will be put in place and it’s not formally listed on the SEC web site.

Cox said the formalizing of the rule was part of the SEC’s ‘war on complexity and said the new format would ‘enable investors to find what they need quickly and reliable, without having to pore through pages and pages of documents.’

XBRL and structured data will bring many benefits to the market and the only way this will happen is if it’s mandated by the SEC. We look forward to seeing this finalized as soon as possible.

Technorati Tags: SEC, XBRL, Disclosure, Corporate reporting, EDGAR, Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Christopher Cox, Investor Relations

A great post by Hitachi XBRL (one of the leading xbrl groups out there). 

Another example of expanding XBRL beyond financial statements is the work being done by a nonprofit group called the Enhanced Business Reporting Consortium.  The EBRC is attempting to organize a market-based initiative involving the collaboration of companies, investors, and a wide range of intermediaries like sell-side analysts, rating agencies, and accounting firms.  Recently members of this group met with SEC Chairman Christopher Cox to talk about how XBRL could be extended into broader narrative reporting, such as for the MD&A and 10K, and for industry-specific key performance indicators.  

A very rough draft XBRL taxonomy for the Enhanced Business Reporting Framework Version 2.0 has been developed. 

Here at Q4 we’ve been extending and building out our systems and in the coming months we will release the next version of Q4 Web and another exciting Enterprise 2.0 type product. From these you’ll begin to see how we are working to bring the value of structured data like XBRL and now EBR to the world of corporate reporting and disclosure in general.

Technorati Tags: Disclosure, SOX, XBRL, Corporate reporting, Q4 Web Systems, Q4

I just finished reading this article about the concept of mash ups coming to the Goverance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) space. “Mashups” as defined on wikipedia is “A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.”
 
The concept comes form the Web 2.0 culture and it generally refers to web application and their content being combined to form new and useful tools. If you’re interested you can find lots of great mashups here.

Here’s a brief quote from the GRC mashup article on how this trend is impacting compliance and the enterprise:

The role and importance of governance is growing. As enterprises embrace governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platforms, as well SOA (service-oriented architecture) governance approaches, are these capabilities headed for a mashup, if not technically than at least operationally? Do they lead to an uber-governance that eventually includes how the business itself is run?
 
This is an exciting concept that we believe is the inevitable path for compliance and enterprise content management. Over the next couple of months we’re going to be releasing some new products into the compliance and disclosure industry that focus extensively on increasing internal efficiency and improving compliance with control certification. A key aspect of these products is their open API foundation and their ability to easily interact and share data with other internal GRC systems and external regulatory bodies. 

More details coming soon…. 

Technorati Tags: SOX, Compliance, GRC, Goverance, Enterprise, ECM, Sarbanes-Oxley, Regulation, Q4 Web Systems, Q4

A new and exciting part of the Q4 system includes the ability to automatically distribute disclosure to all of your stakeholders. This includes alerts for press releases, financial reports, events, web casts and regulatory filings. When connected with our data feeds this provides a complete end-to-end system that maintains transparency with the market and all of your stakeholders.

If you aren’t using the email alerts in Q4 Mail contact your account manager and ask for a demo. I’m sure you’ll be impressed with how you can save time and money while improving your transparency.

Technorati Tags: Investor Relations, Disclosure, Transparency, Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Sarbanes-Oxley, RegFD