It's hard to believe, but we are close to the final deadline for initial XBRL implementation. Many companies are already in compliance--more than 1,800 companies have so far filed in the new format--while others making their final preparations. The last group--basically the smallest public companies--are now on the compliance hot seat as all statements for periods that end on or after June 15, 2011, must be tagged in the new format.

This is only the beginning of the XBRL era, mind you. We are far from the end given the phased approach the SEC has adopted. In the first year of compliance, companies must tag individual items (dollar values generally) in the primary financial statements, while footnotes and certain financial schedules are individually tagged as blocks of text. In the second year, each amount in the notes and financial schedules must also be tagged. So the process will continue for at least a few years. There may be additional requirement along the way

Most agree that the second year of compliance looms as much more complex than the first. "You may get through this summer," one expert tells ComputerWorld. "But, next summer could be four to five times as difficult." Most companies of course have opted for consultants to essentially do there tagging for them.

In any case, it seems that most companies are faring well, though compliance hasn't always been cheap. The most common mistakes so far have been tagging negative numbers incorrectly and a desire to format statements so they replicate paper statements, which is not necessary and a waste of resources.

But while issuers have worked through all the tagging issues, you have to wonder if the grand effort will be worth it. We are seeing very few applications that take advantage of XBRL data, despite predictions of a whole new era in data visualization, one that would make arcane financial data more accessible than ever to the investors large and small. The possibilities are plentiful but it requires some action on the part of companies that want to present its data and research companies that want to represent the data of to investors and other customers.

We eventually would like to see nice Flash-like charts and drill-down capabilities. If a top brokerage firm put their minds to it, I'm sure the results would be amazing. As of now, we're not seeing it. So it is with interest that we note a contest by US XBRL: The XBRL Challenge, which aims to uncover the first generation possibilities. A $20,000 prize awaits the company, team or individual who submits "the most inventive and useful application" leveraging XBRL-formatted data from the EDGAR database. - Jim

Read more: XBRL at the finish line: Was it worth the effort? - FierceComplianceIT