Digital Financial Reporting

This is a great Gartner research report: The 21st Century Disclosure Initiative will Reprioritize Your Business Intelligence and Performance Management Strategies. The punch line is:

Publicly traded companies should use these regulatory reforms to gain a competitive advantage, rather than treat them as a cost of doing business.

The research report discusses how the "last mile of finance" will change, the benefits of the change, and approaches to implementing these changes within your organization.

In my view these changes will not be limited to public companies. Private companies reporting to their financial institutions in support of commercial loans is the obvious next step.

Further, the report points out the benefits structured data provides internal information systems.

Many people make the mistake of asking, "What it costs to add XBRL to a business report." The equation has two parts: cost and benefit.  Another logical question one might ask is, "What is the cost of not having XBRL tagged business information." As more and more information becomes available in an XBRL format, comparing the true costs and benefits will become easier.

As these net benefits are seen, more and more organizations will realize that the "outsource" and "bolt-on" options are less favorable than an embedded or integrated approach to implementing XBRL.  Perhaps not for everyone, but for many.