The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking for a contractor to help develop an inline XBRL software solution.

Inline XBRL is a technology that would allow a company to embed its XBRL tags into a traditional document filing, so it would produce a single document that can be read by both machines and the human eye. Presently, companies are required to submit traditional financial statements and XBRL financial statements separately.

As the SEC has faced some tough questions in recent months about why it hasn't taken bolder action to improve the quality of data it is receiving through XBRL, Virginia Meany assistant director for risk assessment and interactive data, says the SEC has a “healthy interest” in making XBRL submissions easier. “Inline XBRL eliminates the need to create a separate XBRL attachment and allows the filer to embed the XBRL tags in the financial statement document,” she says. “We believe that the use of inline XBRL creates a good opportunity to improve both efficiency and quality by allowing the submission of a single financial statement document, thereby avoiding the need to create two documents in two different data formats.”

Meany says the SEC sees the importance of improving the XBRL experience for both filers and consumers of financial data. “We see inline XBRL as a valuable tool in this discussion with potential benefits to all stakeholders, including preparers, investors and regulators,” she says. “We are working closely with our colleagues at the SEC to evaluate a possible implementation of inLine XBRL."

The SEC recently collected bids through a request-for-proposal process, looking for a contractor that can provide technical services to create and support an inline XBRL solution that would enhance the ability of end users and programmers to use SEC interactive data embedded into HTML documents. “The SEC views interactive data as an important way to increase access to information in the financial marketplace,” the RFP says.

The SEC wants inline XBRL users to have access to freely available software to view, search, and extract the data in inline XBRL documents in a variety of web browsers, according to the RFP. The SEC also wants to post the inline XBRL software solution source code to give software developers maximum flexibility to incorporate its functionality into their own XBRL software tools. The solution needs to meet the needs of the investing public, registrants, disseminators, filing agents, financial printers, software vendors, the SEC, XBRL US, International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation (IASCF), and XBRL International.

Rob Blake, product director for XBRL for financial software firm Trintech, says the RFP is a good indicator that the SEC is preparing to take XBRL into the next stage of its natural evolution. “I think they're going to move fast on it,” he says. “Anything they can do to help preparers around XBRL is going to be helpful, especially when it's something that doesn't cause them more work but pays them back in helping make their review more efficient.”