May 2016 Newsletter

SEC Chair Mary Jo White spoke on the importance of capital raising programs for small businesses including two recent rulings that came out of the JOBS Act, Regulation A+ and Crowdfunding.

Read the speech: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/financing-small-medium-enterprises-and-challenges-crowdfunding.html

The Guide for Issuers clarifies requirements under Regulation Crowdfunding, which came out of Title III of the JOBS Act. Under Regulation Crowdfunding, eligible companies are exempt from registration for certain crowdfunding activities. The ruling became effective on May 16, 2016.

Read the guide: https://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/secg/rccomplianceguide-051316.htm

In a speech at the 48th Annual Rocky Mountain Securities Conference in Denver, CO, SEC Commissioner Kara Stein discussed the SEC’s Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative and the importance of information delivery. During her talk, Commissioner Stein proposed the creation of a Digital Disclosure Task Force focused on what disclosure should look like in the Digital Age.

Read more about the talk: https://xbrl.us/news/sec-20160506

As part of the DATA Act implementation, Treasury issued four draft versions of the DATA Act Information Model Schema (DAIMS) v1.0 that was finalized on April 29, 2016. The DAIMS v1.0 has been revised over the past year based on hundreds of comments provided by the public and federal agencies. The DATA Act DAIMS is now published on the XBRL US web site.

Read more: https://fedspendingtransparency.github.io/data-model/

Access DAIMS on the XBRL US web site: https://xbrl.us/xbrl-taxonomy/2016-us-daims/

The Concept Release requests comments from the marketplace on modernizing certain business and financial disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K. Comments are due on July 21, 2016. XBRL US plans to submit a comment letter and encourages members and other interested parties to do the same.

Read the concept release: https://www.sec.gov/rules/concept/2016/33-10064.pdf

A study conducted by the XBRL US Data Quality Committee found that, by using its first set of validation rules, filers reduced the number of errors in their filings for the data covered by those rules by 64 percent in the first quarter of 2016 as compared to the first quarter of 2015. Large accelerated filers had a 70 percent decrease in the number of errors, while smaller companies had a 60 percent decrease.

Read the release: https://xbrl.us/news/dqc-20160531/

The Proposed Recommendation Release of the Work-in-Process (WIP) Taxonomy was published along with a white paper outlining the business case for standards in the surety underwriting process: Data Standards in Surety Underwriting.

Read the release: https://xbrl.us/news/wip-taxonomy-20160502/

Review the WIP Taxonomy and business case: https://xbrl.us/home/industries/surety/wip-taxonomy/

Campbell Pryde, President and CEO, XBRL US will provide insights into the building blocks of the blockchain covering key players, applications and offerings in financial services. This 50 minute webinar is free.

Register https://xbrl.us/events/fintech-webinar-the-landscape-for-blockchain-technology/

The program will be held in New York City on June 28 with content covering the fundamentals of crowdfunding, crowdfunding using blockchain technology, regulations and their implementation for small business capital formation and funding portals. Other speakers confirmed from Bankroll LLC, Computershare, Crowdnetics, FundAmerica, KPMG and Markit. Attendance is free but registration is required.

Learn more and register: https://xbrl.us/events/crowdfunding-20160628/

Marcum LLP, one of the largest independent public accounting and advisory services, recently joined the XBRL US Surety WIP working group to lend its expertise to the development of standards to be used to collect data in the surety underwriting process.

Read more: https://xbrl.us/home/category/member/marcum/

Learn about XBRL US Membership: https://xbrl.us/membership

At this meeting, industry leaders will participate in discussions and plans for developing guidance and rules for use by public companies complying with the XBRL requirements of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. All are invited to attend this upcoming meeting as online observers.

Register as an online observer: https://xbrl.us/events/dqc-jun2016/

XII will host Data Amplified 2016, a conference for regulators, financial professionals, accountants and others to learn about new technologies and processes that are profoundly impacting how business information is reported and used.

Learn more: https://www.xbrl.org/events/data-amplified-2016/

Lou Rohman, vice president of XBRL services at Merrill Corporation and Vice Chair of XBRL US’ Data Quality Committee, recommends that financial statement preparers take a closer look at the guidance being issued by his committee. Documents on the committee’s website provide guidance and validation rules that should be used for the filings.

Read the article: http://www.accountingtoday.com/blogs/debits-credits/news/sec-looking-more-closely-at-xbrl-filings-78064-1.html

The Altova Work in Process (WIP) XBRL add-in for Excel was designed to help contractors and CPA firms create WIP reports for sureties in a valid XBRL format by entering the information into a spreadsheet in Excel.

Learn more: http://www.altova.com/wip.html