The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved its final rules requiring listed companies to submit their quarterly SEC filings accompanied by financial statements in XBRL format, reports

The proposal to adopt XBRL was tabled by SEC staff last May and was adopted by an open meeting of the commission just before Christmas.

Rather than having corporate information sitting around in a warehouse of paper forms, SEC chairman Christopher Cox said, "Interactive data will enable new analysis tools to put key information at every investor's fingertips within seconds, exactly as the investor wishes to see it."

The new rules will require the top 500 or so companies (with market capitalisations in excess of $5bn) to provide XBRL financial information with their quarterly fililngs from June 2009. All other listed companies will be phased in between 2010 and 2011. Companies using International Financial Reporting Standards for their filings will have to provide interactive data reports for financial years ending on or after 15 June 2011.

The full rules will be published in the US Federal Register over the next few weeks. The outline requirements are available from