The journey to improve financial information available to investors will reach an important milestone in 2013.For a number of years,we’ve asked filers and investors to imagine a world with machine-readable financial information available at the same time as filings in more traditional formats.In 2013,they won’t have to imagine it –it will be a reality.

The 500largest public panies began filing their financial statements and footnotes in XBRL format in June 2009.They began detail tagging their financial information in June 2010,but because of the extended phase-in period,the last group of 7,000filers didn’t begin detail tagging their financial information until June 2012.These smaller pany filers,who represent 80%of the panies filing in XBRL format,are now preparing their first detail tagged 10-K filings.By the end of March 2013we expect to get our first look at a substantially plete set of detail tagged 10-K information for all XBRL filers.

What’s particularly important about this milestone is that,for the first time,investors will have aess to machine-readable financial information for virtually all public panies.Starting in 2013,investors will have aess to the same timely,detailed financial information for small panies that historically has only been available for the largest panies.Equally important,the playing field will start to be leveled for thousands of smaller,high-quality panies who want to raise capital through our markets.

It’s remarkable that investors and data aggregators are already using or evaluating existing XBRL data,given that the data available today only includes detail tagged information for a small fraction of filers,and a limited amount of historical financial information.Clearly,the benefit of this data will only increase as investors have aess to more timely and detailed information about the panies they invest in.

The journey doesn’t end here,of urse.To reach that final destination,more work will need to be done to improve data quality,and to develop user-friendly tools to get this information to investors in a format that is useful to them.

原文链接：http://hitachidatainteractive./2013/01/14/susan-yount-on-2013/

中文新闻：财务信息透明之路将迎来里程碑