Key milestone achieved in XBRL project for SEC; AICPA applauds SEC's support of data tagging.

• Position: News update

Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission awarded XBRL U.S., Inc. (www.xbrl.us) a $5.5 million contract to develop U.S. generally accepted accounting principles financial reporting taxonomies. The work was part of a larger SEC project to reconfigure its Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval system to accept interactive data.

The promise of investor-friendly financial reporting moved closer as SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in Sept. announced the completion of the work to develop data tags for the entire system of U.S. GAAR This achievement means that public companies will be able to more easily tag their financials. Also, it brings automated financial reporting to the SEC--as well as increased usability of financial statements for investors one step...