FICPA NEWS ALERT:

On Wednesday, May 14, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. announced a proposed mandate for U.S.- listed public companies using a new interactive data standard called XBRL.  The SEC created a complete set of data tags that public-company filers soon will use when filing financial statements. They allow far greater analysis and transparency by investors and important company stakeholders.  Federal governments in Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States have similar regulatory mandates or have voluntary filing programs for business reporting using XBRL.

As SEC Chairman Cox said last week at the XBRL International Conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands: 
“Once we unleash interactive data for thousands of public companies on the world, millions of users will find new ways to look at it that even the people who are writing the software can't yet imagine … the opportunities to evaluate financial information in new ways and derive even greater insights into its meaning will change the face of investing forever.
“And just as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are moving toward convergence, so, too, is the XBRL community working to align the structures of the data tags for both IFRS and U.S. GAAP. There's also excitement in the software development community, where smart men and women are developing tools that allow investors to mash up and creatively analyze all of this newly liberated financial data.”
http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2008/spch050708cc-2.htm

To learn more about XBRL and interactive data, attend the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (FICPA) Florida Accounting and Business Expo (FABExpo), where accounting and auditing experts from around the world will provide briefings to FICPA members about this important initiative and its impact on the CPA profession. FABExpo will be held May 28-30, 2008, in Orlando. For complete information, visit www.ficpa.org/fabexpo.