Issued: March 28, 2014
Impact: All US GAAP

Issue

Every filing will contain a number of roll-forwards. We have seen very high error rates in these disclosures when reported in XBRL.

One of the most common errors is in the cash flow statement where companies report the change in cash balances over a period. In a number of cases, companies report an increase/decrease in the cash balance that excludes the impact of the foreign exchange. However, a number of companies have used the element CashAndCashEquivalentsPeriodIncreaseDecrease to represent this change. The element CashAndCashEquivalentsPeriodIncreaseDecreaseExcludingExchangeRateEffect should have been used instead as this excludes the exchange rate impact. This was an element added in 2012 and a number of filers have not updated their filings with this element.

Recommendation

For the cash flow statement roll-forward, if the exchange rate translation element is disclosed but is not included in the calculation of the increase or decrease of cash, the element CashAndCashEquivalentsPeriodIncreaseDecreaseExcludingExchangeRateEffect should be used.

If a Foreign exchange translation is not disclosed then the element CashAndCashEquivalentsPeriodIncreaseDecrease should be used.

If the exchange rate translation element is disclosed and is included in the calculation of the increase or decrease of cash, the element CashAndCashEquivalentsPeriodIncreaseDecrease should be used.