SEC’s plans to overhaul Web site drawing praise

Friday, May 30, 2008

SEC’s plans to overhaul Web site drawing praise

Changes aimed to make it easier to find, track data

by Kevin James Shay | Staff Writer

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s long-awaited plan to make its Internet site more user-friendly by employing interactive, computer-readable digital tags is getting good reviews from Maryland accountants and financial executives.

At least one Maryland business — Columbia chemical company W.R. Grace & Co. — is already filing financial reports in the Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, format through a voluntary pilot program, said Richard Rabicoff, a spokesman for the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants. Other companies with extensive operations in Maryland, such as Comcast Corp., are also involved in that program.

Feedback so far has been positive, Rabicoff said. Executives with Grace could not be reached for comment.

‘‘We will be featuring several XBRL presentations at the Maryland Business and Accounting Expo,” he said.

Scheduled speakers at the conference, slated for June 17-18 at the Baltimore Convention Center, include Michael Willis, founding chairman of XBRL International. The Laytonsville nonprofit consortium involves about 550 businesses and agencies working to promote the format’s adoption.

The SEC has been working on the plan since at least 2004. The commission recently passed a proposal to require about 500 of the largest public companies — those with a worldwide public float, or shares owned by public investors, of more than $5 billion — to begin filing financial data using XBRL early next year. Other public companies would begin under a staggered schedule through 2011.

The electronic tags operate like bar codes to identify financial data. Under the system, users could, for example, track company revenues and profits over several years without having to open several filings.

There are initial costs to companies to switch to the format, with the SEC estimating the average cost for businesses to file their first report in XBRL at some $30,000. The cost declines dramatically after the first report, according to an SEC survey.

The change will make it easier for companies to file reports and allow them more flexibility, said Sunir Kapoor, a board member of the U.S. regional group of XBRL International and CEO of Ubmatrix, an XBRL services provider in Redwood City, Calif.

‘‘For investors and financial analysts, the action will result in more accurate and robust information on public companies,” Kapoor said in a statement. ‘‘It really is a revolution in the way information will be reported and consumed.”