panies get used to filing in eXtensible Business Reporting Language, but some finance execs wonder whether the benefits of implementing it are justified by the sts.

panies that file reports with the Securities and Exchange mission must now prepare their financial statements using eXtensible Business Reporting Language.

The use of XBRL, which allows mmonly used business terms to be tagged for subsequent analysis, has been lauded by some for promoting transparency, yet panned by others because of the st and effort involved.

Early users of XBRL included regulators such as the Federal Deposit Insurance rp. and the mittee of European Banking Supervisors. The SEC’s deployment of the language was launched in phases in 2010, with the largest filers going first.

Large aelerated filers, mpanies with public floats of $700 million or more, have been required to file their 10Qs and 10Ks using XBRL since the quarter ended June 2010. This implementation is being phased in, with all mpanies who haven’t done so already being required to tag statements using XBRL starting last year for financial statements starting this June.

In their first year of mpliance, mpanies must detail tag their face financial statements and block tag their footnotes. pliance in the send and following years is more challenging because detailed tagging of face financial statements and footnotes is required.

Not a Refreshing Experience

Chris Pettit, director of external reporting at Dr Pepper Snapple Group, is a finance executive who’s already has found the system far from a refreshing experience. He participated in the first wave of XBRL in 2010, when his mpany, which was spun off from Cadbury plc in 2008, began the tagging process.

In Q1 2010, “we had to go in and do all of our block tagging,” Pettit, who reports to the CFO, recalls. “But we’re also a large aelerated filer, so we had one quarter to go from ‘here’s XBRL’ to detailed tagging.”

The process, at least initially, was a “very, very bad” one, he says.

His mpany then employed Bowne, an R.R. Donnelley-owned financial printer, to help produce its statements. While the printer would “go in and select which tag is appropriate, this selection was only “about 80 percent aurate,” causing Pettit and his team to have to keep track of handwritten changes.

The result was some long hours spent on XBRL.

“My team in the peak time was cranking from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday through Friday and eight to 10 hours on the weekend,” he says.

Reaching the Breaking Point

The breaking point, he says, was reached when “a new CFO came on board and he wanted to shorten the close time.” In the meantime, the printer was seeking an additional week’s lead time because of XBRL.

Facing this crunch, Pettit turned to WebFilings, which provides a cloud-based solution that eliminated the need for handwritten instructions and double checking. “Instead of leaving at midnight my team now gets out at 6 or 7 p.m.,” he says.

Evidence llected so far indicates that the Dr Pepper Snapple Group experience is far from unique.

Acrding to one 2011 survey, nducted by the Financial Executives Research Foundation division of Financial Executives International, the vast majority of this first wave of XBRL filers were much more likely than later adopters to anticipate a switch from their current methodology to some kind of in-house software solution, if they have not already done so.

The 300 mpanies polled reported utilizing a wide variety of XBRL providers, with 39% of them using WebFilings and 31% using Donnelly. Thomson Reuters, which includes the mpany’s EDGAR Filings, EDGARizer and EDGARizer X products, trailed with 7%.

Transparent, ‘Like Standing in Your Underwear’

WebFilings -founder and managing director Marty Vanderploeg admits that there’s been “a steep learning curve” as far as XBRL is ncerned. But, he says, most users have “me up very quickly and (XBRL) has served the financial mmunity very well.”

The tagging tool is also very useful to users of financial statements seeking transparency, he argues. “It’s like standing in your underwear.”

“XBRL adds transparency, auracy and quality,” he says. “You can hide fraud in many ways but this will make it harder.”

For his part, Dr Pepper Snapple Group’s Pettit, while he says he has gotten a much better handle on XBRL since initial implementation, questions whether its sts and benefits make sense.

It’s “kind of a bitter pill,” he says, questioning whether the investment mmunity is in fact making use of XBRL for research purposes. “We’d love them to use this since it’s out there.”

He adds, “You really hope that it’s worth all the time and effort and hard cash we’ve been throwing into it.”