XBRL – A Small Cap Advantage

INTRODUCTION

Recent revelations of shady accounting practices have fueled
investor demand for more transparency in corporate reporting.
New regulatory rules such as Sarbanes-Oxley are also driving the
need for faster and more accurate reporting of financial results
to investors and other stakeholders. Unfortunately, preparation
and distribution of financial information to multiple audiences
can be time consuming for reporting companies since different
stakeholders require different levels of detail or format. Even
the recipients of these financial reports spend considerable
time retyping information into a spreadsheet or other database
for aggregation or analysis.

An electronic language for financial reporting called Extensible
Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been in development for a
number of years and is being utilized by several major
corporations around the world to report financial results. With
XBRL, financial data from internal systems can be expressed in a
single specification, which can produce multiple outputs with no
retyping required. XBRL is a relatively easy to use standardized
format that is easily accessible and analyzed. While XBRL could
benefit all companies that publish their financial results, we
believe this technology is especially advantageous for small
capitalization companies.

WHAT IS XBRL?

XBRL is a freely licensable electronic language for financial
reporting which provides a standards-based method to prepare,
publish and exchange financial statements of publicly traded
companies. It can be used across any platform, software format
or technology. It is important to note that use of the XBRL
language in financial reporting will not result in additional
disclosure from a company to its external constituents and will
not require a company to change the way financial results are
reported under current accounting standards.

In order to understand how XBRL works and its benefits to the
companies and end-users, it would be helpful to describe how the
current corporate reporting process works. In the pre-XBRL
world, typical steps involved in corporate reporting include: 1)
processing financial transactions and collecting data in
operational data stores; 2) posting transactions to a general
ledger system via a chart of accounts; 3) consolidating general
ledgers from different units at a corporate level; 4) creating
and distributing management reports to support management
decisions; and 5) formatting consolidated financial information
into various formats required by different external stakeholders
such as the SEC, IRS, industry-specific regulatory
organizations, printed annual reports and financial statements,
PDF or HTML for publishing via the web, and credit applications
to lenders. (1)

Obviously, preparing financial information for various external
audiences can be very time consuming for the company as well as
for the investor who needs to retype information for analysis
and aggregation into a database, not to mention the typing
errors that may get introduced during the process. Small-cap
investors may have an especially difficult time obtaining full
and accurate information for smaller companies due to the
limited resources dedicated to small cap companies by third
party data providers.

Many corporations spend an exorbitant amount of time creating
financial statements with desktop publishing tools, web design
tools, word processors, spreadsheets, and templates that check
their Edgar filings. Companies generally need to use a
combination of automated and manual systems to consolidate data
for analysis and reporting. Changes in reporting requirements or
the need to report in a second jurisdiction have been constant
sources of frustration for public companies. Even as there has
been increasing pressure to complete financial reports faster
than before, corporations continue to use a multiple
incompatible programs to create and edit financial exhibits for
its various audiences. (2)

HOW DOES XBRL WORK?

XBRL is the financial and operational business reporting
offshoot of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) that uses tags
based on standardized accounting industry definitions called
taxonomies to describe and identify each item of information in
financial statements. Some compare “XBRL tags” to the bar codes
used to track inventory and pricing information. Once XBRL tags
are applied to the data within financial reports, that data can
be quickly distributed in various formats without the need to
retype. A single XBRL document can be converted to printed
material, fed into an SEC database, published on the Internet,
or sent to a creditor for analysis. Users can leverage those
tags with XBRL-enhanced tools to automatically search for
specific historical data in company financial reports.

XBRL COMPONENTS

XBRL is a relatively complex technology and a number of
components are required to be in place in order for it to work.
Once these various components are in place, financial
information and supporting text from internal systems can be
expressed in a single specification.

Taxonomy – A dictionary of data elements provides corporations
reporting according to U.S. GAAP with the ability to produce
financial statements marked up in XBRL. A series of taxonomies
that represent an electronic description and classification
system for the contents of financial statements and other
business reporting documents are required. Data Tagging and
Document Preparation Software – This facilitates the tagging of
raw data. An Instance Document – This is the term used for an
XBRL-tagged document. Schemas – Schemas are used to validate
XBRL-tagged document that follows the tagging rules for that
document’s taxonomy. Stylesheet – This allows the XBRL-tagged
document to be read or viewed in human-readable format.
Linkbases – There are five different linkbases including:
Calculation linkbase, Presentation linkbase, Definition
linkbase, Label linkbase, and Reference linkbase. These
linkbases for each taxonomy file contain rules that define the
manner in which tagged elements relate to each other and how
calculations or presentation elements should be handled.
Application Software – This should be able to load multiple data
sources created using various tools and provides quick
comparisons of that data to the user.

Source: XBRL.org

BENEFITS OF XBRL

As a result of the XBRL rollout, the efficiency and
effectiveness of all business reporting processes are likely to
increase substantially. Forrester Research estimates that $402
billion is spent each year in retyping financial information. In
the investment community there are many constituents that will
benefit from eliminating those costs through the adoption of the
XBRL technology, including the reporting companies, investors,
analysts, regulators and the media.

For reporting companies, reports that previously took weeks to
prepare can be completed at a fraction of the time and cost
using XBRL. Since XBRL is a consistent language across all
software formats, compiling a report is much easier. The right
information goes to the decision makers more quickly and
frequently with less effort. XBRL eliminates the need for data
to be retyped and reformatted, thereby reducing the cycle time
to prepare, read and distribute the reports. Decision makers
receive reports early enough to impact operations positively.
The timeliness of the data distribution helps with competitive
benchmarking strategic decision-making, and efficiency. We
believe the benefits for investors and analysts are significant.
XBRL technology could more efficiently generate timely financial
information and allow investors to more easily access and
compare data. Rather than retyping financial information into a
spreadsheet or financial database from printed documents or PDF
files, investors could reduce analysis preparation time and cost
by using XBRL tagged data to download information directly from
the Internet or database into a spreadsheet. XBRL has particular
interest for the small cap arena. Small, publicly held companies
often have difficulty getting analysts to track them as a
potential investment opportunity. Reporting in XBRL format may
increase the small company’s chance of appearing in financial
databases thereby reaching more investors. Having information
readily available in a standard industry format that is easily
distributed, analyzed, and evaluated may increase the likelihood
of the stock being included in financial databases and then
tracked by analysts. Financial reporting in the XBRL format may
even potentially increase the number of investment firms and
analysts focusing on small cap stocks if information on small
cap companies is readily available in a reliable and cost
effective format.

XBRL could also benefit the media. The media receives a deluge
of information from hundreds of companies, often at the same
time. With XBRL, the media will be able to immediately and
automatically extract data from financial statements and
earnings releases into spreadsheets allowing the media to easily
report on new developments in a company while being able to
focus on the big picture contained in the Management Discussion
and Analysis section of SEC filings.

It is likely that XBRL will reduce data gathering costs for
third-party information aggregators such as Edgar Online and
Yahoo Finance. Currently, given the costs and limited resources,
there may be more emphasis placed on getting information for
larger cap companies than for smaller caps since information on
large caps may be more in demand. More efficient data collection
should lower operating costs associated with custom data feeds
and reduce errors while allowing these institutions to
concentrate on adding value to the data.

THE STATUS OF THE XBRL IMPLEMENTATION

Based on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent
proposal, SEC registrants would be allowed to file their
financial information using XBRL. On November 2, 2004, the XBRL
International Steering Committee approved the release of the
Financial Reporting Taxonomy Architecture (FRTA) guidelines
which became an official recommendation of XBRL International.
XBRL International is a non-profit consortium whose members
include 250 of the world’s leading accounting, technology,
financial services, and government agencies concerned with
business reporting. The FRTA guideline is a set of requirements
and best practices for the production of taxonomies that are
used in financial reporting. Currently, the U.S. chapter of XBRL
International is developing specific taxonomies for financial
reporting purposes for broker-dealers, investment management,
banking, oil and gas, and commercial and industrial users among
others.

It noteworthy, that strong support for the XBRL standard appears
to come from vendors of financial reporting software. XBRL is an
open standard with no proprietary interfaces or hidden costs
that might otherwise impede adoption. Thus we see software
vendors moving to the XBRL standard in developing and upgrading
software packages. Systems integrators are beginning to work
with their various suppliers to enable a smooth transition to
the standard, including discussion of XBRL in promotional
material and white papers. Thus it would appear that some
vendors believe they can make an adequate cost-benefit argument
in favor of adopting an XBRL-based reporting solution.

CONCLUSION

XBRL is gaining momentum and popularity in the financial
community and could someday be the electronic standard for
financial reporting on a global basis. Today, approximately 250
member organizations, including the FDIC, Fidelity Investments,
Dow Jones, Reuters, and other participants from both in and
outside the United States are involved in the XBRL initiative.
As evidenced by their involvement in the XBRL adoption, there
appears to be a growing level of interest in the financial
community, especially by information aggregators like Standard &
Poors, Reuters, EDGAR Online, and Moody’s, largely due to the
expectation that XBRL will facilitate collection, aggregation
and publication of financial data of publicly held companies.
While the XBRL initiative currently enjoys the support of a
large number of major organizations, it is unclear just how
extensive XBRL’s use and adoption will be. We believe wide
spread XBRL adoption is worthwhile, especially for small-cap
companies. While there are many constituents that will benefit
from the adoption of the XBRL format, we believe small-cap
companies and their investors are likely to be the biggest
winners. Even smaller companies would likely experience a
reduction erroneous data entry and the elimination of some costs
for composing and processing internal and external financial
reports. Yet for companies that may have been neglected by
third-party aggregators of financial information, the increased
visibility in the capital markets is even more valuable. The
availability of easily digested financial data on the small-cap
company should help in raising investment capital and gaining
research coverage. Such “small-cap” advantage would be an ironic
twist in an environment where regulatory and policy reforms are
often implemented with little consideration for the adverse
affects on smaller public companies.

ENDNOTES

(1) “XBRL: Enabling Faster, More Transparent Financial
Reporting”, John O’Rourke and Michael J. Malwitz, Hyperion 2003.
(2) “How XBRL Will Change Your Practice”, Eric E. Cohen and Neal
Hannon, The CPA Journal 2000.