Update: Interactive financial reports

The movement to adopt interactive financial reports, which most agree is a good idea, has not really taken off in the U.S. Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is still not mandatory, and U.S. companies collectively are lagging companies in Europe and Asia. In Europe, according to Financial Week, Basel II compliance is forcing banks to adopt XBRL. England is considering a move to require tax filings be filed in XBRL starting in 2010. At the SEC, the issue is hot apparently. A working group called XBRL US plans to release new interactive formats for 10-K and 10-Q filings this fall, and the agency is mulling whether to requiring all accelerated filers to use XBRL. Some proposals may be coming out this year. This would be a huge event for compliance and financial executives. You may want to start thinking about it.

For more:
- here's an article from Financial Week