Does it add up? Early evidence on the data quality of XBRL filings to the SEC (original) (raw)

2010, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaccpubpol file key performance reports in the Commission's EDGAR data repository in the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format. 2 This research concentrates on one aspect of the SEC interactive data filings -the correct mathematical computation of related numeric facts in the filing. There are three reasons for conducting this research. First, computational errors are one of the most important aspects of data quality in the reporting process. In financial reporting, computational errors affect validity, completeness, accuracy, reliability and, when viewing filings longitudinally, consistency. These are key attributes of data quality ITGI, 2007;. The effectiveness of the SEC's mandate will be determined, in large measure, by the data quality of the information filed by corporations. A key objective of the SEC's program is to develop an ecosystem that supports the production, collection and distribution of data to a wide variety of information consumers . High quality data will be an important attribute in the ecosystem as well as meeting the SEC's own supervisory requirements. If information consumers cannot rely on the soundness of mathematical relationships, they may lose trust in the complete information set. Second, identification of computational errors in XBRL filings is readily tractable with automated tools. This is in contrast to other formats such as HTML or PDF, which do not provide sufficient semantics to undertake automated analysis of data quality attributes. Third, policy prescriptions from research on computational errors have immediate benefits for the Commission, filers, information consumers, the accounting profession and other stakeholders.