The XBRL-US developer Technology Workshop & Summit was recently held in Santa, Clara, CA.   The event was hosted by Hitachi Data Systems and brought together XML developers and other professionals from around the world who are involved with implementing XBRL reporting standards.

The 2 ½ day event consisted of discussion sessions and workshops to educate and generate ideas on solving issues in XBRL development such as rendering, versioning, data quality and validation.

In an otherwise very tech-centric conference, Q4’s Co-founder and CEO, Darrell Heaps provided some interesting ways that companies can make XBRL content discoverable, shareable and viral to move seamlessly through the financial web by key stakeholders such as analysts and investors.

Read more…

As you may recall, we blogged about a NIRI session we attended “Understanding IR Strategies Behind XBRL – IROs Evolving Role”.  In this post we provided a broad overview of why XBRL is relevant to IROs and the requirements for adoption, a broad definition and the implications of using it to help improve processes.

Recently a report was published by The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) targeted to CFO’s entitled “Transition to XBRL”. In spite of this being issued in Canada, the report provides a balanced review of what is required for U.S. companies and foreign private issuers under the SEC’s implementation schedule for XBRL as well as highlighting significant developments in the implementation of XBRL as it pertains to Canadian preparers.

It also explores the benefits and downfalls of implementation and offers some practical tips that are applicable and easily adaptable to issuers in both the U.S. and Canada.  I do recommend that you read the report in its entirety and keep it handy for reference, but wanted to provide some of its highlights.

Read more…

As usual, there were a lot of great sessions to choose from at NIRI’s Annual Conference from June 7-10 in Florida.  The Q4 team attended as many as we could which meant we didn’t always have the time to do write a blog post that day.  What follows is an overview of a session I attended on Tuesday, June 9th entitled “Understanding IR Strategies Behind XBRL – IROs Evolving Role”.

Moderator/Lead Speaker:

Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Chairman, XBRL International

Panelist(s)/Co-Speaker(s):
Michael Becker, VP, Global Disclosure & Financial Reporting Services
Business Wire

Read more…

Read the full release! 

We officially launched our Summer ’09 release from the NIRI National Conference in FL, which introduces Social Media and XBRL capabilities to IR websites.  This latest release offers different ways for investors to find, subscribe and share content through social networks.

Q4’s web platform continuously evolves with market and regulatory trends that keep the IR website on the leading edge of companies’ investor communications.  Q4’s latest IR website products create viral IR content, which means they can be shared, disseminated and republished across the web to millions of retail and institutional investors. 

Customers can now:

• Embed and distribute presentations, videos and documents through SlideShare, YouTube and Docstoc,
• Automatically update Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook with news presentations and events, and
• Aggregate all social activities on the IR website with inbound RSS feeds.

We also announced from the NIRI National Conference, that our Q4 web platform now delivers a highly accurate real-time rendering of XBRL-tagged SEC filings. 

Read the full release! 

This new product enables users to view XBRL-formatted financial statements in an easy to read display on IR websites while helping public companies meet the new SEC XBRL regulations which require them to post financial statements in interactive data formats. 

To respond to this mandate Q4 now offers US-based filers:

•  XBRL financials with real-time rendering on your website – once your XBRL filing is accepted by the SEC, within minutes your website is updated with the complete filing displayed in HTML,
• Multiple report formats for enhanced financial analysis and reporting by investors, analysts and the financial media, and
• Ability to view and download XBRL reports, or share embed codes through social networks. 

If you’re interested in learning more contact us today and we’ll setup a live product demo.

The Q4 team is off to the NIRI National Conference in Hollywood, FL from June 7-10.  For those who are attending we are looking forward to meeting with you, so stop by booth #504 to:

• Find out why social media is now a key aspect of investor relations in lowering capital costs, why it doesn’t need to be difficult and how to responsibly get involved.

• Learn about XBRL filings that can be viewed in an easy to ready display on your website.

For those of you, who can’t make it, we will be providing regular updates on Twitter and posting on our blog.

Summer ‘09 Preview

Earlier today we released our Summer ‘09 Preview through Twitter and LinkedIn. In case you didn’t see it there, we wanted to let you know that our latest release brings Social Media and XBRL to Investor Relations websites in a way that you haven’t seen before. If you’re interested, register for a demo today and your chance to win an HP Netbook!

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to officially launch Summer ‘09 and provide more details on these exciting new additions.  Until then, a couple of key features that separate Q4 from the rest of the IR website providers include:

• 30+  best practice IR website modules integrate with any website
• Easy to use content management and workflow
• Leading edge Investor Tools and Social Media Sharing
• XBRL financials with real-time rendering on your website
• Presentations, videos and documents distributed through popular social networks
• Full-text RSS feeds, email alerts and subscriber management
• Website disclosure records and verifiable audit trail

Register for your preview of Q4 Summer ‘09 today!

During the SEC’s meeting today the panel voted 4 to 1 in favor for mandating XBRL for the 500 largest US issuers. Other companies will have until 2010 (likely) to begin filing using XBRL. This article from Dow Jones provides some additional details. 

Chairman Cox Video: The SEC has approved interactive data financial reporting to give investors faster, better, and less expensive information disclosure.

On September 24, 2008, representatives from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) will hold a free information session for industry participants and members of the media on the increasing use and importance of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language).

The information session will feature expert speakers from the CSA and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who will discuss recent proposals by the SEC for the mandatory use of XBRL, as well as the move to XBRL in Canada.

“As a business reporting language, XBRL will make it easier for investors and analysts to analyze financial information from a large number of different companies,” said James Turner, Vice-Chair, Ontario Securities Commission. “The CSA is supportive of XBRL and is hosting this event to help the Canadian marketplace gain a greater understanding of this exciting technology.”

Speakers:

• James Turner, Vice-Chair, Ontario Securities Commission
• David Blaszkowsky, Director, Office of Interactive Disclosure, SEC
• Peter Grant, Chief Information Officer, British Columbia Securities Commission
• Cameron McInnis, Chief Accountant (Acting), Ontario Securities Commission

Event Information:

• Wednesday, September 24, 2008 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the

Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South Building in Room 714
There is no charge to attend this event. For registration, please go to www.xbrl.ca/registration, or contact Joanne Platsis at the Ontario Securities Commission at 416-593-8222.

Those unable to attend are invited to listen or view the event live from the CSA website
www.csa-acvm.ca/html_CSA/xbrl.html

Earlier today the SEC Chairmen, Christopher Cox unveiled the successor to the form based EDGAR database.   The new system is called IDEA (Interactive Data Electronic Applications) and will be built on an XBRL based platform that will give investors access to faster and more detailed financial information than ever before.

IDEA is the latest in a string of significant announcements that have come out of the SEC including, XBRL mandate and the guidance on web disclosure and RegFD. There have already been a number of posts regarding this announcement and it seems to be well covered by the financial media (see bottom of IR Web Report’s post – SEC unveils IDEA — and that’s all it is). 

During the webcast Chris Vickerson, our CTO was involved in FT Alphaville’s liveblog  discussion and also had one of his question answered by Christopher Cox.  After the web cast the SEC home page was updated with a significant focus on IDEA. From the link on the home page there is an overview of IDEA that I’ve summarized below (emphasis is mine):

IDEA will at first supplement and then eventually replace the EDGAR system, which will become an archive of SEC filings made prior to the new era of financial reporting in interactive data format. The SEC has formally proposed requiring U.S. companies to provide financial information using interactive data beginning as early as next year, and separately has proposed requiring mutual funds to submit their public filings using interactive data.

The decision to replace EDGAR marks the SEC’s transition from collecting government-prescribed forms and documents to making the information itself freely available to investors in a user-friendly format they can readily use. Instead of sifting through one form at a time in EDGAR and then re-keyboarding the information to analyze it, investors will be able to utilize interactive data to instantly search and collate information to generate reports and analysis from thousands of companies and forms through IDEA.

The ease with which interactive data will make financial information more readily available also is expected to generate many new Web-based services and products for investors. IDEA’s launch represents a fundamental change in the way the SEC collects and publishes company and fund information — and in the way that investors and the markets will be able to use it.

Although there was nothing materially new announced during today’s webcast (no new technology or application were shown), IDEA is an important when viewed in the context of how disclosure is going to evolve over the next 5 years. The timetable to full maturity is 5 years out, and while it is being phased in EDGAR will remain an important component of the financial disclosure system. However, if we fast forward to market adoption of XBRL and IDEA there will be many new ways that companies will create and distribute disclosure to the market and there will be all sorts of new applications and methods for investors to benefit from this data. It certainly is an exciting time for our industry and we are very pleased to see the leadership Christopher Cox has shown in bringing the SEC into the age of the Internet.

Some Additional information on Interactive Data:
http://www.sec.gov//spotlight/xbrl.shtml

This past Friday SEC Chairman Christopher Cox announced the launch of the “Financial Explorer” on the SEC Web site to help investors quickly and easily analyze the financial results of public companies. Financial Explorer paints the picture of corporate financial performance with diagrams and charts, using financial information provided to the SEC as “interactive data” in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

Financial Explorer is easily the most impressive XBRL based application that we have seen to date. It does a great job of taking the complex explanation of XBRL and puts it into an easy to read format. Using the XBRL data from each issuer the Financial Explorer generates key financial ratios, graphs, and charts. Information including earnings, expenses, cash flows, assets, and liabilities are all displayed graphically and can easily be compared across competing public companies.

Below is an example of Microsoft’s latest filing (to date, there have been 307 such filings from 74 companies).

The software takes the work out of manipulating the data by entirely eliminating tasks such as copying and pasting rows of revenues and expenses into a spreadsheet. That frees investors to focus on their investments’ financial results through visual representations that make the numbers easier to understand.

Aloca’s Income statement can be found here. Note the small chart icon that represents year over year results, a nice touch that significantly improves the readability of the statement.

“XBRL is fast becoming the universal language for the exchange of business information and it is the future of financial reporting,” said Chairman Cox. “With Financial Explorer or another XBRL viewer, investors will be able to quickly make sense of financial statements. In the near future, potentially millions of people will be able to analyze and compare financial statements and make better-informed investment decisions. That’s a big benefit to ordinary investors.”

Financial Explorer is open source, meaning the code that runs it is free to the public. As interactive data becomes broadly accepted there will be many more applications like Financial Explorer that will help investors and issuers communicate more efficiently and more effectively than ever before.

Is your company filing in XBRL or considering it? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Q4 Web Systems, Q4, Investor Relations, IR Web Sites, Corporate Disclosure, XBRL, Interactive Data, Corporate Reporting, Financial Reporting