The cloud of fear surrounding the next phase of the XBRL Mandate, Detail Tagging, has been growing darker as vendors release the numbers on just how many tags are going to be required to be compliant. The truth is, some companies’ notes have a whole lot of numbers (sometimes in the thousands) that are going to need tags when the time comes. Because of the breadth and intricacy of such an undertaking, it’s important to make sure that your provider has a grasp on what they’re doing. At the end of the day, the printer doesn’t sign off on your financials, you do.

Due to the lack of experience most vendors have with Detail Tagging, there has been an overall inability in the industry to properly price the ever important second year of the SEC Mandate for XBRL. UUp to this point most vendors have not been able to put a price on or estimate the amount of time and energy Detail Tagging will consume. The numbers thrown around have not been pretty. Some clients have heard numbers as high as 80-100K for a year of Detail Tagging. That’s one giant filing tax.

Rivet has successfully gone through the process of Detail Tagging with companies such as T. Rowe Price. Our understanding of the scope and depth of this second year has allowed us to fairly price and predict how Detail Tagging will work, both for us and for you.

When evaluating your provider for their ability to provide compliant, timely XBRL service for Detail Tagging, you may want to focus in on the following to ensure that your filing will be taken care of:

l          Have them demonstrate the software capabilities with your current filing so you can fully understand what it will take to get the job done.

l          Do they have the scalability to handle the additional work requirements of detail tagging for you and all of their clients? Have they shown you?

l          Do they have an Industry Expert assigned to your account? Are they an accountant or CPA? Is this service available 24/7? Who exactly will you speak with if there is a problem?

l          Confirm that you can be as involved in the process as you desire. At some point, you may want to bring the tagging process in house. Confirm that you can do so at your discretion with continued support if needed.

l          XBRL is a mandate. Pick a vendor that will give you tools to analyze the data and allow you to reap the benefits of XBRL. Does your provider include in your package benchmarking and key performance indicators with all SEC XBRL filers in your industry and any others you choose?

Because XBRL is a mandate, there are a lot of players joining the game in the last inning. If your provider didn’t start thinking about XBRL until the ink hit the paper on the mandate at the SEC, they may not have the best technology to handle this very technical interactive data requirement. Sure, a service clerk overseas can write the XML code to produce the XBRL documents, but is this solution scalable, how much is it going to cost, and can you really trust it?