XBRL US takes on the SEC data challenge
Filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are packed with valuable data, but making meaningful comparisons isn’t always straightforward. With thousands of company-specific extensions in play, even similar disclosures can be tagged differently, creating inconsistencies that make analysis harder. That’s exactly the challenge David Tauriello and the team at XBRL US are tackling: turning fragmented financial data into a more consistent, decision-useful resource.
This latest move builds on years of collaboration with the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Data Quality Committee (DQC). The Standardized Statement Taxonomy (XUSSS) offers a structured way to make sense of financial statements, highlighting core concepts that improve comparability. But this isn’t just theory—the team has put it into practice. SEC filings copied into the Public Filings Database now come with normalised views, accessible through the XBRL API or a spreadsheet add-in for easy filtering. Want to take it further? There’s Python code ready to roll, using XULE in Arelle to normalise filings on demand.
This is exactly the kind of structured, technology-driven solution that makes digital reporting work. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took a similar approach when it transformed a decade’s worth of eForms data, moving from Visual FoxPro into a modern XBRL-based system. Now, XBRL US is bringing that same thinking to financial reporting, opening up a new layer of usability in SEC data.
Great work from XBRL US, and an exciting step for structured data. Read David’s full take here and explore the tools for yourself.
