Energy firms will quickly start reporting quarterly and annual monetary and operational data in XBRL format to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The XBRL format isn’t new for public corporations which were submitting reviews with XBRL tags to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for years, but the taxonomy for tagging FERC forms will 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 basic constructing blocks of XBRL implementation in business 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 detail beneath, you’ll notice fairly a couple of variations with FERC’s XBRL requirements.
SIMPLIFIED ELEMENT SELECTION
Standard schedules permit for extremely prescriptive tag assignments. That means no extra tagging from scratch. For instance, the Workiva answer for FERC reporting supplies customers with pre-tagged forms. These standardized pre-tagged types not solely reduce preparation efforts significantly, they also reduce tagging inconsistencies—you can obtain higher data high quality with much less effort.
Also, you are not required to tag each quantity. Notes to monetary 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, these can be tagged with a single textual content block for FERC. A bonus for customers of the Workiva resolution for SEC reporting and the Workiva resolution for FERC reporting: You will have the ability to hyperlink data in your 10-K to your pre-tagged Form 1 for consistency and efficiency.
If no relevant XBRL idea is out there, the information is to not be tagged. However, if an applicable idea exists, FERC requires the data to be tagged (both numeric and nonnumeric). Note that some required information may be reported within footnotes for schedules.
Additionally, เกจวัดแรงดันเชื้อเพลิง are allowed. Besides concepts, axes and members are additionally to be used as offered. So, how do you report company-specific info, corresponding to officer names? In order to help reporting of company-specific info, FERC uses the typed dimension.
The bonus for Workiva users? Although FERC uses a unique technical specification, you will notice the Workiva FERC reporting resolution offers the same look and feel as axis/member utility 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 mostly on kind locations. Also, there aren’t any calculation to define. In reality, custom calculations are not permitted. Validation guidelines will handle consistency checks.
Since FERC taxonomy assigns particular hypercube to each schedule, there is not any define structure to construct. For users of Workiva for FERC reporting, this is routinely managed by the Workiva platform.
Plus, fact ordering isn’t managed by the define and is not required. FERC makes use of a numeric element “OrderNumber” to manage sequencing of company-specific info. Users of the Workiva answer for FERC reporting can simply assign row numbers in the kind schedules as “OrderNumber” within the Workiva platform. Lastly, there aren’t any customized dates as you’re restricted to a small list of allowable values.
SUBMISSION OF DATA AS INSTANCE DOCUMENT ONLY
Going ahead, there is no digital type to submit. Machine-readable data is the important thing focus. Although not in iXBRL format, FERC’s official type renderer will provide standardized viewing for the submitted XBRL data.
SUPPORTS REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL DATA
Since most submitting knowledge to the SEC is public document, the SEC doesn’t supply this, but FERC does. Whether FERC will actually approve a request for confidential information is another question! If you could have an XBRL vendor for SEC reporting, make sure your vendor also helps FERC compliance, for the explanation that FERC taxonomy is not going to be the same as the SEC reporting taxonomy.
PREPARE FOR YOUR NEEDS
Whether you outsource XBRL tagging, select an XBRL software program vendor, or invest the time and money to construct and keep an in-house answer for FERC compliance, understanding the similarities and differences between XBRL filings for FERC and for the SEC shall be crucial when evaluating your choices.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Percy Hung is director of structured knowledge initiatives and Peter Larison is supervisor of structured data initiatives at Workiva. Workiva, Inc. is a world software-as-a-service firm. It provides a cloud-based related and reporting compliance platform that enables using related information and automation of reporting across finance, accounting, risk, and compliance. For extra data, go to www.workiva.com
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