Sounds like a complicated kid's story, doesn't it? Well, it kind of is...but this story has to do with XBRL viewers at the SEC instead of a weird mix of farm and forest animals. With the start of the interactive data mandate on April 13th, there seems to be some confusion as to which XBRL viewer the SEC is using, and where. Add to the mix that one of the viewers doesn't play nice with at least two of the leading web browsers and things get a bit interesting.
The first XBRL viewer the SEC rolled out over two years ago, the Interactive Financial Reports Viewer (let's call it the Old Viewer) has been modified to now only display Voluntary Program filings and thus why looking at it's "Home" page makes it seem like there hasn't been any XBRL filings made to the SEC since April 10th (when in fact, there has been). Since most (actually all) of the SEC XBRL filings coming in at this time are under the mandate program (roughly 95+% of all operating companies are covered by the mandate), this Viewer won't see much action going forward.
The second XBRL viewer is "new" (in fact, let's just call it that...the New Viewer) and is currently available in two forms, one known as the
SEC IDEA Previewer, and the other as simply "the-viewer-that-displays-XBRL-data-when-I-click-on-the-round-Interactive-Data-button-next-to-any-live-filed-XBRL-document-made-since-April-13th" (say that 10 times fast...=). The New Viewer contains a number of enhancements rendering-wise over the Old Viewer as well as supports the new Section 6 Interactive Data requirements of the EDGAR Manual.
Why's the New Viewer discussion so important? Two reasons. First, If you've created XBRL data for the SEC prior to the mandate starting but have yet to see it in the New Viewer, you're in for quite the...ummmm...let's just say "eye-opener". With the new requirements found in the EDGAR Manual (my favorite: 6.13.3), and given some of the previous hard-coded business logic that was in the Old Viewer that has now been removed, I think it safe to say your XBRL will look quite differently than you've seen it before.
Second, don't be alarmed if the New Viewer evolves over time. Although the core of the New Viewer is solid, there are still a few issues with it that may or may not be addressed going forward. For example, the New Viewer currently has a little bit of problem displaying block-tagged Notes if you're running it in Google Chrome or Firefox. Okay, I'm being nice...it has a LOT of problems viewing block-tagged Notes in Chrome or Firefox. So, make sure to stay more mainline and use Microsoft Internet Explorer when viewing any mandated filings using the New Viewer. And don't think about including the single-quote " ' " in the XML Name of your Statement of Stockholder's Equity report, or it causes bad things to happen to your XBRL in the New Viewer...a scary story we'll leave for another time.
-Rob
Bowne's XBRL team is headed up by Rob Blake, Senior Director of Interactive Services. 
Rob, do you know if a viewer-that-displays-XBRL-data-and-highlights-the-use-of-extensions-when-I-click-on-the-round-Interactive-Data-button-next-to-any-live-filed-XBRL-document-made-since-April-13th is available, or do you know if/when it might be? Any other free Web accessible third party viewers for any-live-filed-XBRL-document-made-since-April-13th yet? Looking forward to seeing what evolves. Maybe someone should run a contest for a shorter name for the-viewer-that-displays-XBRL-data-when-I-click-on-the-round-Interactive-Data-button-next-to-any-live-filed-XBRL-document-made-since-April-13th. :) Paul
Posted by: pjwilk | May 05, 2009 at 11:46 AM