In 1974, the first Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned in Troy, Ohio, automating what had been a manual process for recording sales. The first item scanned was a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum. The UPC revolutionized the retail grocery business, using technology standards to wring costs out of a process that required the collection of massive amounts of data.
As we begin a brand new year, it’s always good to make a few resolutions that go beyond joining a health club, eating right and losing weight. So we have three recommendations to add to your list of resolutions. The first is get involved in industry efforts to improve the usability of XBRL data submitted to the SEC. It won’t require a lot of effort and you will receive some important benefits. For a small investment of your time, you will be on the forefront of imminent, groundbreaking regulatory changes, and you will be able to reduce your workload while significantly improving the quality of your XBRL financial data submitted to the SEC.
Formats are sometimes mistaken as financial data standards by regulators, government agencies and businesses. It’s a misunderstanding with significant consequences for comprehensive, comparable, interoperable data collection and use.
UPC codes. Shipping containers. Most people understand that the introduction of these kinds of standards revolutionized an existing process, making it better, faster, cheaper, by establishing a single method of doing something that is used by many. UPC codes made it possible to track purchasing habits worldwide. Shipping containers dramatically reduced the cost and time involved in shipping goods cross-country. Financial data standards can be similarly revolutionary – reducing processing costs, enabling automation and greater timeliness, providing for validation checks to improve accuracy.
Every once in awhile a data collection process comes along that is ripe for standardization – the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Form 5500 Annual Report for pension fund data is one such system. The DOL’s Employee Benefits Securities Administration (EBSA) published proposal to modernize the data collection process of the annual report and corresponding schedules, with an eye towards giving data users the ability to perform better analysis of individual plans, multi-plan comparisons and trends; aid the agencies efforts at enforcement and at monitoring compliance issues; assist auditors; and provide new research opportunities.
The national consortium for
the business reporting standard
