SEC Adopts Inline XBRL Rule

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted amendments requiring the use of the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format for the submission of operating company financial statement information and fund risk/return summary information. The amendments become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register but provide a phased-in compliance period for using the Inline XBRL format. It is expected that the changes will become effective by the middle of August 2018.

The Inline XBRL format allows filers to embed XBRL data directly into the document filed on EDGAR. This means filers will no longer need to tag a copy of the information in a separate XBRL exhibit or file a separate interactive data file on their websites. As noted in the adopting release, "Inline XBRL is both human-readable and machine-readable for purposes of validation, aggregation, and analysis."