Energy firms will soon begin reporting quarterly and annual monetary and operational information in XBRL format to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The XBRL format isn’t new for public corporations that have been submitting reviews with XBRL tags to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for years, however the taxonomy for tagging FERC forms shall be different.
TIME TO EVALUATE YOUR OPTIONS
In many respects, the burden must be lighter for FERC filers than SEC filers. Both will depend on the XBRL 2.1 Specification (which defines the essential building blocks of XBRL implementation in enterprise reporting) and the Arelle open-source XBRL validation engine. And a “fact” in both reviews is represented by a price (numeric or non-numeric), elements, date, unit, and accuracy.
But, as we element below, you’ll notice fairly a few variations with FERC’s XBRL necessities.
SIMPLIFIED ELEMENT SELECTION
Standard schedules enable for extremely prescriptive tag assignments. That means no extra tagging from scratch. For example, the Workiva answer for FERC reporting offers users with pre-tagged types. These standardized pre-tagged types not solely scale back preparation efforts considerably, in addition they reduce tagging inconsistencies—you can obtain greater data high quality with less effort.
Also, you are not required to tag every number. Notes to financial statements require block tags only. For example, if disclosure notes are pasted into FERC Form 1 from the 10-K you file with the SEC, these could be tagged with a single textual content block for FERC. เครื่องมือความดัน for users of the Workiva answer for SEC reporting and the Workiva answer for FERC reporting: You will have the flexibility to hyperlink data in your 10-K to your pre-tagged Form 1 for consistency and effectivity.
If no relevant XBRL concept is available, the knowledge is not to be tagged. However, if an applicable idea exists, FERC requires the knowledge to be tagged (both numeric and nonnumeric). Note that some required information could also be reported within footnotes for schedules.
Additionally, no extensions are allowed. Besides ideas, axes and members are additionally for use as provided. So, how do you report company-specific info, corresponding to officer names? In order to help reporting of company-specific data, FERC makes use of the typed dimension.
The bonus for Workiva users? Although FERC uses a unique technical specification, you will see the Workiva FERC reporting solution presents the same appear and feel as axis/member software in the Workiva solution for SEC reporting.
NO OUTLINE MANAGEMENT OR CUSTOM DATES
For FERC reporting, no custom labels or label roles are needed. Labels are auto-assigned by the official FERC renderer based mostly on form areas. Also, there are not any calculation to define. In fact, customized calculations usually are not permitted. Validation guidelines will handle consistency checks.
Since FERC taxonomy assigns particular hypercube to each schedule, there is not a outline structure to construct. For users of Workiva for FERC reporting, this is routinely managed by the Workiva platform.
Plus, reality ordering isn’t managed by the outline and is not required. FERC makes use of a numeric component “OrderNumber” to regulate sequencing of company-specific data. Users of the Workiva solution for FERC reporting can simply assign row numbers in the type schedules as “OrderNumber” within the Workiva platform. Lastly, there are not any custom dates as you’re limited to a small list of allowable values.
SUBMISSION OF DATA AS INSTANCE DOCUMENT ONLY
Going forward, there is no digital kind to submit. Machine-readable data is the key focus. Although not in iXBRL format, FERC’s official kind renderer will provide standardized viewing for the submitted XBRL information.
SUPPORTS REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL DATA
Since most filing knowledge to the SEC is public report, the SEC doesn’t supply this, but FERC does. Whether FERC will actually approve a request for confidential knowledge is one other question! If you may have an XBRL vendor for SEC reporting, make sure your vendor also helps FERC compliance, since the FERC taxonomy is not going to be the same because the SEC reporting taxonomy.
PREPARE FOR YOUR NEEDS
Whether you outsource XBRL tagging, select an XBRL software vendor, or make investments the money and time to construct and preserve an in-house answer for FERC compliance, understanding the similarities and variations between XBRL filings for FERC and for the SEC will be essential when evaluating your options.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Percy Hung is director of structured knowledge initiatives and Peter Larison is manager of structured information initiatives at Workiva. Workiva, Inc. is a world software-as-a-service company. It supplies a cloud-based linked and reporting compliance platform that allows the utilization of connected knowledge and automation of reporting throughout finance, accounting, risk, and compliance. For more information, visit www.workiva.com
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