Energy firms will soon start 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 which have been submitting reports with XBRL tags to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for years, but the taxonomy for tagging FERC varieties shall be totally different.
TIME TO EVALUATE YOUR OPTIONS
In many respects, the burden should be lighter for FERC filers than SEC filers. Both will rely on the XBRL 2.1 Specification (which defines the fundamental constructing blocks of XBRL implementation in enterprise reporting) and the Arelle open-source XBRL validation engine. And a “fact” in both reports is represented by a price (numeric or non-numeric), components, date, unit, and accuracy.
But, as we detail beneath, you’ll notice fairly a number of variations with FERC’s XBRL requirements.
SIMPLIFIED ELEMENT SELECTION
Standard schedules permit for highly prescriptive tag assignments. That means no extra tagging from scratch. For instance, the Workiva resolution for FERC reporting provides users with pre-tagged varieties. These standardized pre-tagged varieties not solely scale back preparation efforts significantly, in addition they minimize tagging inconsistencies—you can achieve greater information quality with much less effort.
Also, you aren’t required to tag each quantity. Notes to financial statements require block tags solely. For instance, if disclosure notes are pasted into FERC Form 1 from the 10-K you file with the SEC, those can be tagged with a single textual content block for FERC. A bonus for users of the Workiva answer for SEC reporting and the Workiva resolution for FERC reporting: You will be able to link information in your 10-K to your pre-tagged Form 1 for consistency and efficiency.
If no applicable XBRL concept is out there, the information is to not be tagged. However, if an relevant concept exists, FERC requires the data to be tagged (both numeric and nonnumeric). Note that some required data could additionally be reported within footnotes for schedules.
Additionally, no extensions are allowed. Besides ideas, axes and members are additionally to be used as offered. So, how do you report company-specific information, such as officer names? In order to support reporting of company-specific data, FERC makes use of the typed dimension.
The bonus for Workiva users? Although FERC uses a different technical specification, you will notice the Workiva FERC reporting answer offers the same feel and appear as axis/member application in the Workiva solution for SEC reporting.
NO OUTLINE MANAGEMENT OR CUSTOM DATES
For FERC reporting, no customized labels or label roles are needed. Labels are auto-assigned by the official FERC renderer based on form locations. Also, there are no calculation to define. In fact, custom calculations aren’t permitted. Validation rules will deal with consistency checks.
Since เกจวัดแรงดันสูญญากาศ assigns specific hypercube to each schedule, there is not any outline structure to build. For customers of Workiva for FERC reporting, this is mechanically managed by the Workiva platform.
Plus, truth ordering is not managed by the define and is not required. FERC uses a numeric component “OrderNumber” to manage sequencing of company-specific info. Users of the Workiva solution for FERC reporting can easily assign row numbers within the kind schedules as “OrderNumber” in the Workiva platform. Lastly, there are not any custom dates as you’re limited to a small record of allowable values.
SUBMISSION OF DATA AS INSTANCE DOCUMENT ONLY
Going ahead, there is not a digital kind to submit. Machine-readable knowledge is the important thing focus. Although not in iXBRL format, FERC’s official form renderer will present standardized viewing for the submitted XBRL data.
SUPPORTS REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL DATA
Since most filing information to the SEC is public document, the SEC doesn’t provide this, however FERC does. Whether FERC will really approve a request for confidential data is one other question! If you’ve an XBRL vendor for SEC reporting, ensure your vendor also supports FERC compliance, because the FERC taxonomy will not be the identical because the SEC reporting taxonomy.
PREPARE FOR YOUR NEEDS
Whether you outsource XBRL tagging, select an XBRL software vendor, or make investments the time and money to build and keep an in-house answer for FERC compliance, understanding the similarities and variations between XBRL filings for FERC and for the SEC will be crucial when evaluating your choices.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Percy Hung is director of structured data initiatives and Peter Larison is supervisor of structured information initiatives at Workiva. Workiva, Inc. is a global software-as-a-service company. It provides a cloud-based linked and reporting compliance platform that enables using related data and automation of reporting across finance, accounting, risk, and compliance. For extra info, visit www.workiva.com
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