Attend May 12 webinar for review of data quality trends, plus insights into draft ruleset
The XBRL US Data Quality Committee (DQC) has published its 15th Ruleset for a 45-day public review and comment period, which closes on June 2, 2021. This latest draft ruleset contains eight rules specific to US GAAP filers, and one new rule for IFRS filers. Since the program began in 2015, the DQC has finalized and approved 14 rulesets, covering a range of potential error types and alerting filers to possible problems in thousands of filings. The 14th ruleset was approved at the Committee’s January meeting, and has an effective date of May 1, 2021.
A subset of DQC rules has been incorporated into the US GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and is referenced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the March 2021 Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval (EDGAR) System Filer Manual. The EDGAR Filer Manual states, “EDGAR will support new data-quality enhancing checks included by FASB in the US-GAAP 2021 taxonomy. Its DQC Rules Taxonomy (DQCRT) was developed through public review in collaboration with market participants via the XBRL US Data Quality Committee (DQC). EDGAR will inform filers of certain quality defects via warning messages.”
DQC rules are freely available to US GAAP and IFRS issuers to help validate their filings and identify potential errors. Using DQC rules aids issuers to prepare consistent, high quality XBRL financials, by providing automated checks that test XBRL-formatted financial statements prior to SEC submission. The DQC is funded through the XBRL US Center for Data Quality.
Proposed ruleset 15 contains business rules that help issuers identify incorrect use of the business acquisition axis and the asset acquisition axis; inaccurate relationship in facts reported for gross and net acquisition; errors in the use of concentration risk; problems in summations of assets acquired net of goodwill; and issues in the consistency of facts reported over time. All error categories contain rules for US GAAP filers, and the latter category includes rules for IFRS filers as well.
Issuers that use the freely available rules can find and correct errors, to ensure that regulators and investors are provided with good quality data and the most accurate view of corporate financial health. Filers, data providers, investors, accountants, and preparation tool providers are encouraged to review and comment on the proposed rules. Access the public review: https://xbrl.us/data-quality/rules-guidance/public-review/
The DQC will hold a webinar on May 12 to explain the new draft rules, and to review the impact of the rules on quality of data reported through the SEC program. Register for the free webinar: https://xbrl.us/events/210512/
The XBRL US Filing Results & Quality Checks application allows SEC Filers or other interested parties to check EDGAR submissions for DQC errors for any company here: https://xbrl.us/data-quality/filing-results/
Graphical depictions of historical DQC error count, categorized by rule type, can be seen here: https://xbrl.us/data-quality/filing-results/dqc-results/
Filers have immediate access to all final approved rules as well as the 15th Ruleset in public review so that they can check their filings prior to SEC submission. There are several options available to filers:
- Through software that has been certified to run with the ruleset: https://xbrl.us/certification
- Through the XBRL US checking tool: https://xbrl.us/check
- By downloading the Approved Rules and using them with Arelle – the open source version of the SEC’s EDGAR Renderer/Previewer: https://xbrl.us/dqc-releases
To access the approved rules and guidance, go to: https://xbrl.us/rules-guidance
Members of the XBRL US Center for Data Quality include Altova, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), Broadridge Financial Solutions , Certent, DataTracks, Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN), P3 Data Systems, RDG Filings, Toppan Merrill, and Workiva, Inc.
