XBRL US Data Quality Committee Public Exposure of 16th Rule Set for US GAAP Filers
Shelly Wavrin of Toppan Merrill Named as Incoming Chair of the Committee
The XBRL US Data Quality Committee (DQC) has published its 16th Rule Set for a 45-day public review and comment period, which closes on August 31, 2021. This latest draft rule set contains eight rules specific to US GAAP filers. The 15th Rule Set was approved at the Committee’s June meeting, and has an effective date of September 1, 2021. Shelly Wavrin, Senior Financial Consultant at Toppan Merrill, was recently named as the new chair to lead the DQC.
“I’m pleased to be able to work with an industry-driven group that is making an important difference in the quality of corporate reporting,” noted Wavrin, “I encourage issuers and filing agents to get involved in reviewing the proposed rules and providing us with input for further refinement.”
To date, six DQC rules, covering hundreds of XBRL concepts, have been incorporated into the Data Quality Committee Rules Taxonomy (DQCRT) maintained by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The DQCRT is included in the FASB US GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy release.
“FASB Taxonomy staff conduct a diligent review of the DQC rules before including them in the taxonomy,” noted Louis Matherne, FASB’s Chief Taxonomy Developer, “We’ve included these validation rules in the Taxonomy with a goal of enhancing data quality by increasing exposure to, and use of, the DQC rules by issuers. We intend to add more rules with each new taxonomy release published by the FASB.”
The 16th DQC Rule Set contains the following rules:
- Financial Statement Tables Dimensional Cross Check. Flags situations where dimensional values are inconsistent with the reported sum of those values.
- Financial Statement Tables Calculation Check of Required Context. Checks for child elements that do not sum to a reported aggregation of those elements for a required context.
- Income Before Tax Equity Method. Checks to ensure that the element Income before income tax, Non Controlling Interest and Equity Method Investments, is used correctly.
- Incorrect Line Item Reference. Checks the appropriate use of extensible lists on the balance sheet.
- Incorrect Transition Elements Used. Flags the use of certain line item elements that should no longer be used because of changes in accounting standards.
- Components of Equity on the Balance Sheet. Catches situations where the equity/capital components axes are incorrectly used on the balance sheet.
- Missing Components of the Equity Axis. Checks facts that are expected to be included on the Equity Components Axis.
- Breakdown of Lease Liabilities & Assets Across Financial Statement Line Items. Checks when lease items are present but not included in the presentation.
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 in preparing 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.
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 for DQC Rule Set 16: https://xbrl.us/data-quality/rules-guidance/public-review/
The DQC will hold a webinar on August 4 to explain the new draft rules, and to review the impact of the rules on the quality of data reported through the SEC program. Register for the free webinar: https://xbrl.us/events/210804/
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 16th Rule Set 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, Inc., Certent, an insightsoftware company, DataTracks, Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN), P3 Data Systems, RDG Filings, Toppan Merrill, and Workiva, Inc.
For more information on the XBRL US Data Quality Committee and the Center for Data Quality, go to: http://xbrl.us/data-quality
