XBRL Spreads to Small Business Administration
Great news from the US as contractors and bond agents can now submit data in XBRL format, automating what was a laborious manual process and freeing up valuable time for small businesses.
This week in the US the Surety Working Group announced that the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Surety Guarantee Plan A program will now accept XBRL-formatted Work-in-Process (WIP) reports.
The SBA guarantees surety bonds, allowing small businesses in the construction sector that might otherwise not meet the criteria to provide completion guarantees. Contractors and bond agents acting on behalf of contractors must submit WIP reports containing detailed information of every project a contractor works on – with information included ranging from contract price, to date of completion and cost.
Up until now, WIP reports have been manually uploaded, with contractors entering the data into an online form, and users of that data manually rekeying it again before analysis. The use of XBRL is clearly an improvement which will save time and help ensure the quality of the data by avoiding rekeying.
XBRL International welcomes this expansion of data standards into the SBA administrative process. Congratulations to everyone who has been working on this – including the XBRL US Surety Working Group, who have developed the XBRL US WIP Taxonomy.
Read more here.
