EXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a global data standard used for reporting business information in a computer-readable format. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated the reporting of public company financials in XBRL format, starting in 2009, to make financial information easier for investors to analyze, and to assist in automating regulatory filings and business information processing. To meet their requirements, many companies (especially smaller companies that do not have extensive resources) have outsourced their creation and filing process.
To understand the true expense for small companies complying with the SEC’s mandate, and to gauge the trend in pricing, XBRL US and the AICPA updated their cost study, originally conducted in 2014, and surveyed XBRL filing agents providing XBRL tagging and filing services to small public companies. The 2018 study is based on price data from 1,032 small reporting companies, across thirteen different filing agents or service providers for 2017 services. The average price was $5,476 per year, a 45% decline from the average cost in 2014, which was $10,000 per year.
Through discussions with vendors, the study found that companies that paid higher annual fees did so due to complexities in their financial statements and rush charges imposed given last minute changes to the filings. Charts illustrating this information, with comparisons to the 2014 original study, in a more in-depth manner can be found at the end of the document.