For years now (well, the past two to three years) the assumed wisdom has been that the creation of a set of XBRL documents for filling with the SEC would require between 40 to 80 person hours. Lately the figure of 30 to 50 has been used, with "10% taking more than 80 hours".

A recent survey raises serious questions about these estimates. While second and subsequent filings have taken significantly less time (as expected) the initial filing time commitment is much higher than has been touted. The lesson is that XBRL, and especially Phase II detailed tagging of footnotes, will cost businesses significantly more than they have been told to expect.

The facts are coming out, and it is time to stop pretending, and stop misleading. When 57% of respondents say that the effort for XBRL filing with the SEC exceeded 120 hours, there is much to do to restore the credibility of those providing resource estimates. Some real numbers would help.

I invite you to read more, and if you wish, to comment here: http://raasconsulting.blogspot.com/