Why Is the U.S. XBRL Conversion Process So Slow?

XBRL (Document markup language); DOCUMENT markup languages; UNITED States. Securities & Exchange Commission; SCHAPIRO, Mary L., 1955-; INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems

The author discusses some obstacles to progress of Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) adoption and conversion. The first mandate of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for XBRL was announced by SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro on January 30, 2009. SEC mandates all accelerated issuers to file their yearly reports on the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system prior to XBRL conversion. Business and colleges are said to be not eager to allocate financial and human resources to XBRL programs due to the sluggish economy.