To understand the true costs of small companies complying with the SEC’s mandate, XBRL US and the AICPA surveyed 14 XBRL filing agents providing XBRL tagging and filing services to 1,299 small public companies (32% of small publicly listed companies). The survey was completed in December 2014.
The survey showed that 69% of the companies paid $10,000 or less on an annual basis for fully outsourced creation and filing solutions of their XBRL filings. Meanwhile, 18% of the companies paid annual costs of between $10,000 to $20,000 for their full service outsourced solutions. Only 8% of companies paid more than $25,000 in annual costs. No company’s annual cost exceeded $50,000. Companies that paid higher annual fees did so due to complexities in their financial statements and rush charges imposed given the many last minute changes to the filings (e.g., filing changes for an IPO).
These results demonstrate that the investments to standardize corporate disclosure data are not overly burdensome on small companies and in fact are worth the additional cost. Companies using XBRL benefit due to their ability to reach more investors and provide analysts with easy access to more detailed financial disclosure information.
Read survey highlights.
Download the full survey.
