“XBRL can greatly reduce the pain of doing business with the State,” says Kim Wallin, State Controller of Nevada, and author of a white paper on using XBRL for state wide business reporting.

Wallin, the first CPA and the first CMA to be elected to the Office of State Controller in 50 years, recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in accounting in the country in 2003, and the “Woman CPA of the Year” in 2006, is a firm believer in ushering in transparency and efficiency in business through leveraging technology.

In a white paper co-authored with Liv Watson, Vice Chair, XBRL International and Shweta Gupta of IRIS Business Services, Wallin outlines how XBRL can achieve a long envisioned objective of providing an integrated platform across various agencies within a state government, and thereby simplifying the costs of doing business.

“Currently, new businesses need to go to the Secretary of State, then to the Department of Taxation, then Unemployment, DMV to register vehicles, city, county, etc., to obtain all the permits, licenses and so on to do business in the state,” she says. "And every place you go, you have to fill out a form with your name, address, ID number -- basically the same information at each location. If you use XBRL in a business portal, you would fill out name, address, ID number, etc. and then the data can go out and populate the other systems. If you do it without the XBRL, systems don't talk to one another."

The whitepaper looks at creating a common business portal, which allows various agencies to share the same information and seamlessly integrate them with their proprietary systems, by leveraging the XBRL framework.

“The concept sounds more daunting than it actually is, since XBRL can enable agencies to receive and process information without overhauling any existing systems,” says Swaminathan, CEO, IRIS Business Services. “Our XBRL enabled workflow solution has been deployed in India to work simultaneously with the two leading stock exchanges, allowing companies have to file information only once. Both exchanges had their own proprietary systems and information structures, but the common taxonomy and the XBRL data could be mapped to both easily. It is the same concept we are applying here,” he adds.

"Once the taxonomy is created, it can be approved by the XBRL International Consortium and can be adopted as a standard by other States as well,” says Liv Watson, Vice Chair, XBRL International. “This would extend the use and facilitate easier exchange of information across states.”

Nevada State Controller Kim Wallin has been wrestling with the problems of internal financial reporting, grants management and tracking and making sense of financial information since she took office. As a member of the XBRL International Public Sector Working Group, she was able to recognize and apply XBRL to various areas of the State government reporting, including grants reporting and debt collection.

“I am convinced that XBRL would be an excellent enhancement for a statewide reporting initiative, and we have outlined a practical approach in this paper,” she says.

IRIS is implementing a pilot with the State Controller’s Office, to use XBRL for debt collection management system. This is expected to significantly enhance efficiencies in the debt collection process at the State by reducing the need to use 100s of spreadsheets to track the debt.