Rivet Software Newsletters
Stay connected with Rivet Software's company updates and important information concerning the world of XBRL.
September 2010 Newsletter
Featuring: Best Practices for Your XBRL Filing, Dragon View Product Update, and Employee Spotlight on Yelena Kuskin
June 2010 Newsletter
Featuring: XBRL Due Diligence, Crossfire Product Update, and Video Featuring Rivet Software CEO Patrick Quinlan
July 2009 Newsletter
Featuring: Rivet's Support Packages and Recent Software Releases
February 2009 Newsletter
Featuring: The SEC Ruling and What You Need to Know
December 2008 Newsletter
Featuring: xbr-HELP!, a letter from our CFO
September 2010 Newsletter
In this issue:
Letter from Patrick Quinlan, Rivet Software CEO
Best Practices for Your XBRL Filing Going Forward
Employee Spotlight: Director of Software QA - Yelena Kuskin
Product Spotlight: Announcing Dragon View - The Standard View and Review Tool for XBRL
Fun Facts and Figures from the Q2 Filing Season
Upcoming Webinars
Congratulations to all of you who completed your latest filing! Special congrats to the Detailed Footnote filers for making history this summer. It was groundbreaking and educational for everyone and we'd like to share with you some things we learned from the experience of this past filing season in preparation for the quickly approaching next one. We will reveal some 'Insights' to help you prepare and 'Fun Facts' on what helped keep us going.
We are grateful to our clients for the trust they showed in us and for helping increase our market share over 58% with a 300% increase in filings over the previous quarter. In response to growing marketplace needs, Rivet now has the largest US-based XBRL staff out of any service provider. We have lots to share and are excited about what the future holds. Mostly, we are honored to be a part of setting a new path.
For those of you in the second wave of SEC filers who have completed your first Block tagged XBRL filing, now is the time to start getting ready for Detailed Footnote tagging. If you're in the third wave of public companies, Rivet will serve as an important resource as you start to explore the SEC mandate and begin to incorporate XBRL into your company's permanent lexicon.
Rivet is dedicated to making the lives of finance professionals easier. Let us know how we can help.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Patrick Quinlan
CEO
Best Practices for Your XBRL Filing Going Forward
After successfully completing an incredibly busy filing season, the conversations have naturally turned to "How can we do this even better next time?" No matter how successful a project is, there is always room for improvement. One thing we have all realized is that no one can be too prepared for completing their XBRL filing for the SEC, especially detailed footnote tagging. After talking with members of Rivet's Compliance and Professional Services teams, the overwhelming opinion was the need for filers to be proactive and not wait until quarter's end before beginning preparations for the following quarter. Here are a few hints to help you prepare:
- Start now by educating your entire organization including your attorneys and auditors. Take into account that each new group involved may make changes to your filing or their review may extend the time necessary to complete it. Bring these groups on board early in the process so no one has to make rushed decisions when your filing is due.
- Review how this past filing season went and evaluate your XBRL review process. Are the correct people involved in the process? Is the process you've put in place working or do you need to make changes to how the information flows through your organization? It is important to reflect on both the successes and the "not-so-successes". Work with your provider to address issues moving forward. This is a good time for self reflection. Ask if you could change your processes to help with the filing process.
- After reviewing your process, you should review your element selection. Analyze your Crossfire Reviewer's Guide from the last quarter and see if the elements selected truly reflect your financial statements. Now is the perfect time to engage the analytical features of Crossfire and compare your XBRL filing to other companies' filings in your SIC code. Conduct a line by line element review. Did you choose one element and the rest of your industry chose another? Did you extend an element when no other company did? Drill down into your filing and take advantage of Crossfire's ability to make these comparisons now.
- Document, document, document! Document your review process and how this process worked last filing season. Document issues that you had last filing season so that the positives continue and the negatives get addressed. Update your current processes to reflect any changes to streamline the process. And lastly, the SEC may call and ask why you decided to extend a particular element. Be prepared by taking the time now and documenting why you chose the elements you did or why you chose to extend an element, not only will you be able to easily and accurately explain your decisions, you will be able to pass along the information to future employees too.
- Take this time to learn more about XBRL. We expect accountants to know and understand Excel. XBRL will become the same type of standard in the accounting industry. Don't avoid the inevitable, the more you learn about XBRL the more valuable you will be to your current and future employer.
- Start becoming comfortable with the fact that much of XBRL is still open to interpretation by the SEC and many decisions are a matter of opinion. Although the SEC offers guidance, you may want to start an XBRL group with your peers to compare and contrast issues and situations.
These are just a few ideas to help you make good use of this time before your next filing. Next filing season will be here before you know it so make sure you're ready to ensure a smooth and successful XBRL filing season. Let us know how we can help!
Join us for our Best Practices Webinar, October 7th! »»
Employee Spotlight: Director of Software QA - Yelena Kuskin, PMP
Rivet Software's success is built upon the strength of its people and its ground-breaking software. Yelena Kuskin, Rivet's Director of Software Quality Assurance, represents the best in both areas. This past filing season her skills were in high demand. Thankfully, she is known for her ability to balance exceptional application knowledge with an understanding of the customer and their needs. It is her attention to detail and passion for building innovative software applications that allowed our clients to successfully file their financials using XBRL in Q2.
A cum laude graduate of Mogilev State University of Technologies, Mogilev, Belarus (former USSR) in Mechanical Engineering, Yelena became Rivet's first official employee as a Product Manager in 2004. Before Rivet, she worked for FRx Software (now owned by Microsoft) as a Project Manager. Yelena also brings to Rivet seven years of accounting experience from maintenance of company fiscal records to preparation of financial statements and managerial reports.
This past filing season, Yelena worked tirelessly to make it happen for our clients. Keith Gardner, who works with Yelena everyday in Rivet's QA department, and acknowledges that Rivet's software development department is an extremely collaborative group, sees it this way, "Someone like Yelena makes everyone she interacts with realize they have more ability than they think they have. This makes them consistently do better work than they thought they could."
It's employees like Yelena Kuskin that make Rivet Software a company that will forge ahead and make amazing things happen for our clients and the industry - thank you Yelena!
Product Spotlight: Dragon View - The Standard View and Review Tool for XBRL
Dragon View 5.0 has just been released with enhanced features. Dragon View is the only XBRL viewing software on the market designed for non-technical business users. Simple to download, Dragon View empowers users to view and review XBRL-based financial statements, 10Q and 10K filings and other XBRL documents with the goal of providing greater information transparency to help finance and accounting professionals make more informed decisions. The user-friendly interface helps business users understand XBRL content without having to master the complexity of XBRL. Dragon View is based on the same Rivet-developed technology used to power the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Interactive Data Views, which provides a familiar end-user experience and allows users to see what their filings will look like on the SEC website before they are submitted.
Dragon View is a valuable desktop application for any company filing with the SEC. With Dragon View, users based in any location can access the most recent SEC filings and download them instantly for comparison and analysis. However, the uses for Dragon View extend beyond SEC filings to any global documents tagged using an XBRL-based taxonomy such as the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS).
How can you use Dragon View?
Dragon View can work as an independent tool, with other XBRL applications, or in conjunction with Rivet's industry-leading Crossfire Financial Reporting Platform to provide start-to-finish support for XBRL investor and external financial reporting projects.
- For CEO and CFO's - view your SEC filings and then benchmark them against the filings of other companies.
- For Controllers - SEC Reporting Professionals-view the use of XBRL tags across your specific industry. You can also view elements and supporting information from Mutual Fund Risk/Return Summary filings.
- For Auditors - view and review your clients' XBRL SEC filings.
- For Financial Information Aggregators - view, aggregate and export XBRL filings to Excel for distribution and analysis.
Learn more about how Dragon View can help you »»
Fun Facts and Figures from the Q2 Filing Season:
This last quarter's filing season was a huge success for Rivet and our clients. Our employees and our clients worked together to make history by submitting XBRL filings to the SEC with the highest level of accuracy of any financial reporting company to date*. Besides our Crossfire software, understanding clients and Rivet's incredible employees, just what did it take to help make history? Here are just a few ways that Rivet reached these unprecedented heights over a 25 day period:
- 4000 Chick-fil-A Chicken Nuggets eaten
- 1343 Breakfast Burritos consumed
- 180+ reams of paper (sorry trees but we did securely shred and recycle when done!)
- 25 gallons of Diet Coke Syrup (yes, just the syrup)
- 9 Razor Scooters
- 3 Barcaloungers
- 2 gong hammers, and
- 1 CEO in a marching band uniform
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Pictured: Rivet CEO Patrick Quinlan |
*According to the XBRL Cloud EDGAR dashboard, an independent resource for XBRL filing validation.
Upcoming Webinars
Keep up-to-date with industry events and Rivet by attending our free webinars.
Conducting Due Diligence for Your XBRL Filing Solution
Date: September 30th
register »
Best Practices for Your XBRL Filing
Date: October 7th
register »
