8.1 Management's Responsibilities and Review Objectives

Financial statements in XBRL are management's responsibility.

Management is responsible for the completeness, accuracy, and presentation of the company's financial statements whether those financial statements are "paper-based" or in XBRL (instance documents). XBRL instance documents are only as reliable as the financial information used and the accuracy of the mapping used to create them. Accordingly, a company must develop processes and controls over the creation of instance documents and review procedures to ensure that the documents fairly reflect their financial statements. The following is a sample, but not an exhaustive list, of some of management's responsibilities associated with an instance document:

1. Appropriate Taxonomy: The instance document uses the latest published taxonomy that is available on the XBRL US, Inc. website. If files from an industry entry point are referenced, the industry should be appropriate for the entity.
2. Complete and Accurate Entity Information: The instance document includes complete and accurate information about the reporting entity.
3. Completeness of Tagging: The instance document includes tagged data for all information in the financial statements at least at the required minimum level of detail of tagging described in Section 2, Getting Started.
4. Accuracy of Tagging: The elements in the instance document accurately represent the concepts in the financial statements that have been tagged.
5. Company-Specific Elements Justified: Company-specific elements have been created and used in the instance document only to represent a company-specific domain member, or when an element representing the underlying financial reporting concept did not exist in the latest published taxonomies.
6. Completeness and Accuracy of the Tags: The tags used in the instance documents are complete and accurate (whether from the published or extended taxonomies), including their attributes, relationships, and contexts.
7. Completeness and Accuracy of Labels and Definitions: Labels of the elements, whether for new elements or whether overriding the label of an XBRL US GAAP Taxonomy element, are reasonable descriptions of the tagged financial reporting concepts.
8. Completeness and Accuracy of Relationships: Relationships in the extension taxonomy (presentation, calculations, and dimensions) fully and accurately reflect the relationships of the financial reporting concepts in the financial statements.
9. Accuracy of Values: The instance document includes numeric values that are the same as the numerical values in the financial statements.

Additionally, management is responsible for compliance with any regulatory reporting requirements associated with XBRL instance documents.

Management responsibilities for the instance documents are the same whether the company prepares the instance documents internally or uses the services of a third party.

The remainder of this section focuses on the following management responsibilities and associated review objectives.

• Accuracy and completeness of mapping concepts from the financial statements to elements
• Accuracy and completeness of tagging and data entry
• Accuracy of context assignments
• Accuracy and appropriateness of the extension's elements and relationships

8.1.1 Accuracy and Completeness of Mapping

One of the first steps in creating an instance document is developing a map between the published financial statements and elements in the XBRL US GAAP Taxonomy. This map defines the financial data in XBRL terms. This mapping must be accurate and complete, and approved by the appropriate level of authority in the preparer's organization. Preparers should obtain approval from within the organization for the company's mapping before creating the instance document. Otherwise, they might need to duplicate effort by having to change or even recreate the instance document.

In some cases, the individual skills and authority needed to approve the mapping may go beyond the external reporting function in the organization. The review process may also include staff and decision makers from legal, environmental, mergers and acquisitions, and other functions, who are not likely to have the same level of understanding about XBRL as those in the external reporting function. Therefore, preparers should create a mapping document that will be easy for the necessary individuals to review. The software that preparers choose may assist with this by creating a user-friendly, accessible report. However, preparers may need to create a spreadsheet that contains the appropriate information in a manner that is straightforward for those who are not familiar with XBRL.

8.1.2 Accuracy and Completeness of Tagging

Once preparers have completed the mapping, they also must confirm that the mapping is accurately and completely implemented in the company's extension and instance document.

To do so, preparers must compare elements from the published financial statements documented in the mapping with the elements used in the instance document.

Creating a human-readable format of the instance document, called rendering, is usually necessary during the final review process, especially when those accustomed to using hard-copy documents will be involved. However, reading the rendered instance will not identify all errors that may exist in the extension taxonomy or instance document. In practice, technical support is usually required to generate detailed reports on the extension taxonomy, or several different renderings of the instance document (for example, showing element attributes in addition to their labels, or showing the instance using calculation relationships rather than only presentation relationships).

The exact process for ensuring this type of accuracy will depend on the software preparers use and the organization's level of technical support.

8.1.3 Accuracy of Context Assignments

Instance documents typically contain a very large number of contexts. Software can assist in creating and sorting contexts, but contexts, or several contexts, can still be applied to the wrong data.

Checking the accuracy of the context assigned to each piece of data can be done effectively using a printout that segregates each piece of data (numeric and textual) into the contexts to which they have been assigned in the instance document. Context information can be incorporated into a mapping document to facilitate the review.

8.1.4 Accuracy and Appropriateness of Relationships in the Extension

Relationship files in an extension make the extension taxonomy match the presentation, calculation, and dimensional relationships as they exist in the published financial statements. The rules and rules of thumb in this guide indicate what other relationships must or should be present for any preparer-added elements in the extension taxonomy, so the reviewer should check the relationship files for completeness with respect to this guide. Reviewing relationships is the most difficult kind of review to perform because it requires professional judgment as well as an understanding of the meaning of XBRL relationships, element types, and the rules and rules of thumb for preparers. The individuals in the organization who are the most knowledgeable about XBRL should be involved in this review.

8.2 Validation

If preparers leave validation to the end of the extension taxonomy and instance document creation process, they are likely to be overwhelmed with errors. These errors might also be more difficult and time consuming to identify after preparers have a completed document. Therefore, preparers should perform validation checks early and often, so that the errors can be resolved as they occur.

8.3 Review and Approval

The accuracy and reliability that company stakeholders expect from financial statements do not vary based on the format in which those statements are released. XBRL extension taxonomies and instance documents must be subject to the same rigorous review and approval as the financial statements that are filed with the SEC. Preparers should prepare a quality control process specific to their company's process for financial statement preparation, review, and approval. The quality control process must include the external financial reporting function and CFO or equivalent executive.

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