The Israeli XBRL Adoption Experience

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is revolutionizing business reporting around the world. It is a tool to bridge potential language barriers and unify financial reporting. This has appeal to foreign investors, among others, who can rely on information in XBRL‐tagged financial reports to make investment decisions without having to translate financial statements from local language. In 2008, Israel required most public companies to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for financial reporting and to use XBRL‐tagged reporting format, as part of an aggressive effort to make its capital markets more transparent and attractive for foreign investors. In this paper, we study all Israeli public companies and analyze the accuracy and reliability of their XBRL‐tagged financial statements that are available on MAGNA, the Israel Securities Authority's electronic system. We describe the process by which the XBRL‐based data were collected and reported. We document, categorize, and analyze deficiencies in the XBRL‐tagged filings, and inconsistencies between them and the Hebrew‐based annual reports. We observe pervasive data entry errors resulting in inaccurate XBRL‐generated financial reports, which went undetected for over one year. Further, first year XBRL reporting (in conjunction with IFRS adoption) did not increase foreign investment in the Israeli capital markets. This analysis allows us to better understand the benefits and challenges of the adoption of XBRL.     

Stakeholder engagement in internet financial reporting: The diffusion of XBRL in the UK

Internet financial reporting is now widespread with most medium and large companies in the developed world providing a wide variety of financial data online. However, much of this information mirrors the paper versions of financial reports, often with little attempt to enhance the decision usability of the data, providing a so called ‘first generation’ of online reporting (ICAEW, 2004). eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been designed to provide a ‘second generation’ of online reporting, specifically to enhance the usability of the data. Documents rendered in XBRL are digitally-enabled so that it is easier for stakeholders to extract information directly into spreadsheets, or any other XBRL-enabled analysis software, without the need to re-key data thus providing significant improvements in information flows and enhancing inter-company comparability.XBRL consortia have spent more than 15 years promulgating the use of this technology within the business and government communities. However, despite their efforts XBRL has not become widely diffused, there is little stakeholder engagement and very few organisations have voluntarily adopted XBRL in practice.The results of a questionnaire survey in the UK indicate that awareness of XBRL, and second generation reporting more generally, resides in key champions but there is little diffusion outside this narrow set of stakeholders. Regulatory engagement seems to be the only impetus for diffusion and better channels of communication within stakeholder networks, such as between regulators, preparers, users and the XBRL community are needed. This paper suggests that currently the supply-push for XBRL is failing to produce effective use of this technology in the UK. Greater regulatory commitment is now needed to create an impetus for XBRL such as creating tools and making publicly available, accessible, repositories of XBRL data. Unless this happens, diffusion will not occur, and the demand-pull which is now needed will vanish and XBRL will fade and die.     

CAP Forum on E‐Business: Compromise or Customize: XBRL's Paradoxical Power

Business reports are changing in response to regulatory and market demands. Requests by regulators for electronic filings of financial statements and tax forms are increasing and such filings are rapidly becoming mandatory in many countries. In response, extensible business reporting language (XBRL) is a market‐driven, collaborative effort to make electronic filings more useful to, and to reduce the burden on, both publishers and consumers of business reports. XBRL does much more than simply list data items that can be submitted in an electronic filing. XBRL is a complete set of tools for regulators or groups to fully communicate the meanings of and interrelationships among the business reporting concepts. In addition, core sets of concepts from regulators or groups can be extended, expanded, or otherwise modified for more specific communication by jurisdictions, industries, or individual corporations. This unique customization capability lets companies better present their electronic filings as parallels to their paper filings. A “customizable standard” offers new opportunities and new challenges. This paper discusses XBRL's paradoxical power ‐ the trade‐offs between customizing to better parallel existing paper reports and compromising to more closely match the standards, and the research needed for the transition from freeform to customized reports.     

Does one size fit all? Evidence on XBRL adoption and 10-K filing lag

This paper examines how XBRL adoption is associated with 10-K filing timeliness. Using a sample of 10-K filings from 2007 to 2016, we find that 10-K filing lag decreases for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 accelerated filers following the XBRL mandate. For Tier 3 smaller reporting companies, however, filing lag increases significantly in the post-XBRL period. Results from a difference-in-differences specification as well as using an alternative measure of filing timeliness produce similar inferences. We then investigate factors associated with the delay. We find that 10-K filing lag increases with XBRL filing complexity, whereas the deployment of a more experienced service provider can mitigate the lag. Overall, this study provides evidence that XBRL mandate improves preparer efficiency for most firms; however, our finding that the effect for smaller reporting companies goes in the opposite direction leads to the question whether XBRL can be viewed as a one-size-fits-all solution to financial reporting.     

大数据时代线领财务报告变革

财务报告的改进离不开信息技术的发展,可扩展商业报告语言（XBRL）推动了财务报告在互联网时代的发展,而大数据时代的技术变革和思维变革将再次引领财务报告新的突破,在财务报告模式的重构、信息披露制度的改进、网络财务报告方面产生重要的影响。     

Non‐Audit Service Fees and Financial Reporting Quality: A Meta‐Analysis

Auditing as a corporate governance mechanism has attracted considerable research attention. Because of the information asymmetry between corporate managers and outside shareholders, auditors are hired to provide independent assurance that financial statements are prepared following generally accepted accounting principles. The credibility of such assurance depends on the independence, both in fact and in appearance, of the auditor. Over the years, however, the independence of auditors has come under increased scrutiny because of their joint provision of both audit and non‐audit services. A sizable literature on the impact of non‐audit fees on financial reporting quality has developed. The evidence from this literature, however, remains inconclusive. This paper provides a meta‐analysis of the available literature by assessing (a) the net effect of non‐audit fees on financial reporting quality, and (b) whether there is homogeneity in the financial reporting quality proxies used in the extant literature. Findings suggest that the level of client‐specific non‐audit fees is associated with reduced financial reporting quality. However, the underlying studies used to conduct this meta‐analysis are not homogenous.     

XBRL for Financial Reporting: Evidence on Italian GAAP versus IFRS

The systematic adoption of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for financial reporting represents a great challenge. Worldwide, a large number of regulators are making an effort to promote the adoption of this standard to simplify and enhance the communication of financial information. This requires the definition of well‐structured taxonomies that can standardize and accommodate the content of financial reports prepared by firms. This study aims to analyze the regulator‐led adoption of XBRL for financial reporting. It examines the XBRL taxonomies used by Italian firms to reflect their financial reporting under rule‐based Italian GAAP and principles‐based International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We compare the alignment of the Italian GAAP taxonomy and the IFRS taxonomy with Italian companies' financial statements and find two different levels of fit. The results offer useful insights for regulators and policy makers in prescribing or establishing appropriate taxonomies. We illustrate the potential impacts of the different taxonomies on the quality of financial reporting in terms of comparability and potential loss of information.     

Financial reporting on the Internet by 2010: a consensus view

This paper reports the final results of a Delphi study into corporate financial reporting by 2010. Twenty UK experts in accounting and the Internet representing academics, auditors, regulators, reporting companies and users participated in the study. A three-dimensional conceptual framework was adopted consisting of the role of the Internet (i.e. problem solver or problem creator), the determinant of change (technological determinism, non-technological determinism or contingency perspective), and the pace of change (conservatism, gradualism or radicalism). The consensus view was that the financial reporting package would evolve into a core of general purpose, standardised information (in both the hard copy and Internet version) together with a non-core of general purpose and customised information. Radical changes suggested by prior studies such as real-time reporting and disclosure of raw data will not occur, at least to the core package. Auditors will be reactive and cautious, and regulators will adopt a minimalist approach. The fundamental dilemma of financial reporting in the Internet environment will be between standardisation and customisation.     

Progress on XBRL from an Australian perspective

This study examines the progress of XBRL (extensible Business Reporting Language) in the Australian context. XBRL has the potential to be the digital language for data transfer and integration of business systems. The paper describes the nature of XBRL and notes that the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has mandated its use. We review the implications of XBRL, such as audit assurance issues, comparability and real-time reporting, and conclude that XBRL has the potential to enhance financial accounting reporting. What is needed is the completion of the enabling technology, simplification and acceptance.     

Issues with the communication and integrity of audit reports when financial reporting shifts to an information-centric paradigm

A core application of XBRL is to facilitate the flow of tagged financial statements and annual reports, from companies and other entities directly to the databases, web sites, and computers of regulators, stakeholders and other information consumers. Increasingly, XBRL provides the technological foundation for the communication of financial information where there is independent assurance. This XBRL-based assurance may be on the financial statements (i.e., an electronically consumable form of today's standard PDF or HTML audit report) or focus on the quality of the XBRL exhibit (i.e., the instance document). Regardless of the type of XBRL assurance report, maintenance of the security and integrity of the instance document is paramount. This conceptual paper identifies and discusses the communication, security challenges and relevant research issues when there is independent assurance on financial statements formatted in XBRL. Successful electronic communication of assurance to information consumers should clearly distinguish the responsibilities of management (i.e., the financial statements) and the auditor (i.e., the audit report). It is important to have an integrated approach where the assurance report, financial statements and other reports in which facts in the financial statements are incorporated are inextricably tied at the level of automated data consumption. Further, as much as possible, human interaction should be accommodated. The paper sets out a range of alternatives for maintenance of security on the assurance report.     

Standard Business Reporting in Australia: efficiency,effectiveness, or both?

The benefits of using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) as a business reporting standard have been widely canvassed in the extant literature, in particular, as the enabling technology for standard business reporting tools. One of the key benefits noted is the ability of standard business reporting to create significant efficiencies in the regulatory reporting process. Efficiency‐driven cost reductions are highly desirable by data and report producers. However, they may not have the same potential to create long‐term firm value as improved effectiveness of decision making. This study assesses the perceptions of Australian business stakeholders in relation to the benefits of the Australian standard business reporting instantiation (SBR) for financial reporting. These perceptions were drawn from interviews of persons knowledgeable in XBRL‐based standard business reporting and submissions to Treasury relative to SBR reporting options. The combination of interviews and submissions permit insights into the views of various groups of stakeholders in relation to the potential benefits. In line with predictions based on a transaction‐cost economics perspective, interviewees who primarily came from a data and report‐producer background mentioned benefits that centre largely on asset specificity and efficiency. The interviewees who principally came from a data and report‐consumer background mentioned benefits that centre on reducing decision‐making uncertainty and decision‐making effectiveness. The data and report consumers also took a broader view of the benefits of SBR to the financial reporting supply chain. Our research suggests that advocates of SBR have successfully promoted its efficiency benefits to potential users. However, the effectiveness benefits of SBR, for example, the decision‐making benefits offered to investors via standardised reports, while becoming more broadly acknowledged, remain not a priority for all stakeholders.     

公司报告模式再造:基于XBRL与Web服务的柔性报告模式

如何将信息技术的创新成果应用于公司报告改革是学术界和实务界共同关心的问题。本文综合应用XBRL和Web服务等前沿技术提出柔性化的公司按需报告模式,并讨论其基本特性以及对会计信息质量特征的改进与创新。该模式突破目前仅将XBRL应用于公司报告呈报环节的简单应用模式,深入企业内部应用系统,并延伸至用户终端,形成一个充满柔性的完整的公司报告供应链。     

The production and use of semantically rich accounting reports on the Internet: XML and XBRL

Most major corporations in the U.S. (and a growing number of companies around the world) are reporting some level of financial information on their Web sites. However, it is not clear that the stakeholders are fully satisfied with this Web-based data. The time and effort allocated to the mechanics of Web retrieval are actually increasing because of the difficulty of finding pages and specific data within the enormity of the public Web (over 1 billion pages) or of many corporate intranets. One way to deal with this vast information source would be to automate the Web search mechanics by developing and using intelligent software agents. However, developing these agents in the current Web environment is very problematic. Three factors are preconditions for effective utilization of the Web. First, appropriate metadata representation of financial reporting information on the Web is required that could improve the accuracy of searches (the resource discovery problem). Second, accounting data points within Web pages should be able to be reliably parsed (the attribute recognition problem). Third, standard mechanisms are required that will encourage or require corporations to report in a consistent fashion. The reality of the Web is that it falls far short of a reliable communication medium for accounting and financial information on all three of these factors. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) provides a method to tag financial information to greatly improve the automation of information location and retrieval, and provides technical solutions to the resource discovery and attribute recognition problems. However, if every company were free to develop its own labels for its XML tags, then the searching for financial information would be only marginally improved. The recent development by a consortium lead by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) of the so-called “eXtensible Business Reporting Language” (XBRL) is an initiative to develop an XML-based Web-based business reporting specification. The widespread adoption of XBRL would mean that both humans and intelligent software agents could operate on financial information disseminated on the Web with a high degree of accuracy and reliability. XBRL provides rich research opportunities, including new taxonomies, database accounting, financial statement assurance, intelligent agents, human/computer interfaces, standard development process, adoption incentives, global adoption, and formal ontologies.     

Towards the global adoption of XBRL using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)

XBRL is a language based on XML for the electronic communication of business information. It is designed to improve the exchange, aggregation and analysis of corporate data requiring disclosure, through a unique tagging structure that provides interoperability. But, the proliferation of a multitude of XBRL taxonomies, based on different accounting principles, can risk the objectives of standardization, comparability and re-usability of the information that is sought with XBRL. It is therefore essential to develop global accounting standards as a unique foundation on which the XBRL taxonomies can be established, so that it becomes possible to compare the financial information originating from various countries. Along these lines, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS-GP) taxonomy was created to establish a common ground for international firms and create a platform that would enhance the benefits of XBRL. This paper examines whether the IFRS-GP taxonomy, at its current state, adequately covers European companies' dissemination practices and strengthens the benefits of XBRL. Our results provide implications for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the IFRS-GP taxonomy and shed light on directions that may lead to the improvement of this taxonomy.     

网络财务报告：XBRL标准的理论基础研究

XBRL研发中由于没有一个现成的概念框架予以指导和规范,导致的问题是建立的信息标准缺乏必要的理论支持,XBRL报告的内部组织也缺乏必要的层次和结构,信息之间的关系得不到合理解释。目前无论是国际还是国内,从会计角度研究XBRL基本理论都处于起步和探索阶段,本文将会计理论、数据库理论相结合。尝试建立了以财务信息元素为结构的XBRL理论体系,并对该理论体系的逻辑关系和层次结构进行了论证。该理论无论在国际还是国内都是首次提出并加以论证的,我们认为它不仅仅可以作为财务报告系统信息标准开发的理论基础,也适用于作为簿记系统、交易和事项系统信息标准开发的理论基础。     

The Influence of Country‐ and Firm‐level Governance on Financial Reporting Quality: Revisiting the Evidence

This paper examines how firm‐level governance and country‐level governance interplay in shaping financial reporting quality. Using IFRS adoption as a source of variation in firms’ reporting discretion, and a large sample of European firms that mandatorily switch to the new set of standards, we find that in countries with low enforcement and weak oversight over financial reporting, only firms with strong board‐level corporate governance mechanisms experience an increase in financial reporting quality, consistent with firm‐ and country‐level governance mechanisms being substitutes. However, in countries with high enforcement and strict oversight over financial reporting, firms with either strong or weak board‐level governance mechanisms experience an increase in financial reporting quality, even if the increase is larger for the former group. Overall, our findings indicate that in the debate about the effects of governance on the quality of financial reporting, it is important to consider both country‐ and firm‐level corporate governance mechanisms.     

CAP Forum on E‐Business: The Management of Financial Disclosure on Corporate Websites: A Conceptual Model*

This paper addresses the impact of Internet financial reporting (IFR) on financial accounting theory by incorporating it into the general Gibbins, Richardson, and Waterhouse (GRW) (1990) disclosure‐management framework. The GRW model assumes that the firm has a relatively stable process of disclosure management. This process varies between two positions: one ritualistic and the other opportunistic. These dimensions can coexist in the same firm but, on average, the policy of a firm will be either more ritualistic or more opportunistic. Our survey of the financial information disclosed in traditional financial reporting (TFR) as compared with the website disclosures of a random sample of Canadian companies documents a significant difference between TFR and IFR, as well as a wide variability among the sample firms in their use of IFR content, format, and technology. We interpret this variability in the incremental difference of IFR over TFR as an indication that a firm's ritualistic or opportunistic behaviour under IFR is not different from its behaviour under TFR. Thus, the adapted GRW (1990) conceptual model appears to have the potential to support future research in the management of financial disclosure on corporate websites.     

基于XBRL环境网络财务报告网页呈现质量实证研究

具有信息披露有效性和网站适航性的服务平台是高质量XBRL网络财务的基础。为分析XBRL网络财务报告示范服务平台的呈现效果,本文采用专家咨询法对服务平台的质量进行了评分,在此基础上对上海证券交易所、深圳证券交易所、台湾证券交易所、以色列证券交易所和美国证券交易委员会等所设置的XBRL示范服务平台从信息质量特征和网站适航性等方面进行比较与分析,提出了改进中国XBRL环境网络财务报告网页呈现质量的政策建议。     

How Does Financial‐Reporting Regulation Affect Industry‐Wide Resource Allocation?

This paper examines the impact of mandatory reporting and auditing of firms’ financial statements on industry‐wide resource allocation. Using threshold‐induced variation in the share of mandated firms in a given industry, I document that reporting mandates facilitate ownership dispersion in capital markets and spur competition in product markets. I, however, do not find that reporting mandates unambiguously improve the efficiency of industry‐wide resource allocation. With respect to auditing mandates, I find only that they impose a fixed cost on firms, deterring smaller entrants.     

Information processing costs and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from the SEC’s XBRL mandate

The IRS uses information contained in financial statements as well as tax returns to detect tax avoidance behavior. We examine the impact on corporate tax avoidance behavior of reductions in the IRS’s information processing costs resulting from the mandatory adoption of XBRL for financial reporting. Motivated by the recent debate in the U.S. Congress over the cost-benefit of mandatory XBRL reporting for small firms, we pay particular attention to small firms, which inherently have relatively high information frictions. We find that the adoption of XBRL for financial reporting results in a significant decrease in tax avoidance. We further find that the negative relation between XBRL reporting and tax avoidance is less prominent for firms subject to more intense IRS monitoring in the pre-XBRL-reporting period. Overall, our results suggest that XBRL reporting reduces the cost of IRS monitoring in terms of information processing, which dampens managerial incentives to engage in tax avoidance behavior.