Given the amount of data that must be tagged and the mpressed filing time frames for public mpanies, XBRL tagging is having an adverse effect on reporting cycle times and review processes. At least that’s the view of the mittee on rporate Reporting at the Financial Executives International.

mittee Chairman Loretta Cangialosi is appealing to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro to amend certain XBRL requirements. Cangialosi reminded Schapiro that the mmittee has raised ncerns with the SEC before about the filing time lines and st-benefit issues related to detailed tagging of footnote information.

True, the SEC has engaged in extensive outreach with preparers, users of financial statements and XBRL service providers, she acknowledged. But the problem hasn’t gone away, she said. There’s just too much data to tag with too little time to properly tag it all and meet filing deadlines, she ntends.

“Whether this activity is performed internally or outsourced to third-party service providers, the mmitment of resources is significant and the effect on reporting cycle times and review processes has been adverse,” she wrote to Schapiro.

Whether mpanies perform the tagging in-house or outsource it to third-party service providers, mpanies are struggling with the reporting cycle times and review processes. “Based on current trends in the volume of disclosure provided in registrant filings, we expect this effect to beme more pronounced and stly in the future,” she wrote.

Cangialosi ntends only a fraction of the tagged information is actually used by data aggregators and other financial statement users. Instead, those users are primarily interested in tagged information in the basic financial statements, with only a small subset looking at the detailed tagging of specific footnotes.

“We estimate that roughly 75 percent of the volume of XBRL tagging is not actually used by investors and yet the tagging of the entire data set is ntributing to delays in filings and diffusion of data preparation and review efforts across the registrant population,” she wrote. Just have a look at the number of hits on rporate webs, Cangialosi ntends, where the average is in the single digits.

The mmittee is calling on the SEC to develop a more focused approach to detailed tagging that limits its application to the re financial statements and the standardized, mparable footnote data that is used by analysts and investors. The group also hopes to see the SEC develop a way for registrations to efficiently and effectively submit a single filing that inrporates XBRL information instead of requiring mpanies to ntinue to file both in HTML and XBRL. Cangialosi also calls on the SEC to exempt wholly owned subsidiaries that qualify for abbreviated disclosure rules from detailed tagging, especially when nsidering their data is nsolidated to a parent mpany’s financial statements.