[24244]
April 16, 2010
TO: ACCOUNTING/TREASURERS MEMBERS No. 13-10COMPLIANCE MEMBERS No. 10-10
ETF ADVISORY COMMITTEE No. 14-10
SEC RULES MEMBERS No. 34-10
SMALL FUNDS MEMBERS No. 25-10
TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE No. 4-10
XBRL WORKING GROUP RE: SEC TECHNICAL UPDATES TO SUPPORT RISK/RETURN SUMMARY DATA IN XBRL
As you may recall, the Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted rules requiring that mutual funds submit the data in the Risk/Return Summary section of their prospectuses using XBRL, for registration statements that become effective after January 1, 2011. *
The Commission has completed a number of changes to its technology infrastructure in order to support submission of Risk/Return Summary information in XBRL.
First, the Risk/Return Summary XBRL Taxonomy has been updated. The new version of the taxonomy will be the only version permitted to be used once required submission begins. The latest changes were driven primarily by the need to make the taxonomy compatible with the Commission's XBRL Viewer tools. All taxonomy schema files, sample data, and documentation are available at http://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/edgartaxonomies.shtml#RR2010.
Firms preparing XBRL filings should pay close attention to the modified structure for defining fund and class contexts, and to the new options available for controlling HTML rendering of the XBRL data. These changes are discussed in the Architecture and Rendering Guides provided with the taxonomy. There were few changes to tags for the Risk/Return Summary data disclosures, and none that change the way in which substantive data in those elements is defined. Spelling corrections were made in a few tag names, and the Average Annual Return elements were restructured to address rendering problems.
In addition, the Commission has launched a preview tool that will allow filers to view an online rendering of their XBRL data before or after its submission to EDGAR. The Preview tool is available at https://datapreview.sec.gov/previewer/.
Finally, the EDGAR system has been updated to reflect validation requirements for the Risk/Return Summary XBRL data. The EDGAR Filer Manual (Volume II, Chapter 6) describes these requirements. Information for EDGAR filers is at http://www.sec.gov/info/edgar.shtml.
The Commission plans to hold an educational seminar for preparers of mutual fund Risk/Return Summary XBRL submissions, probably in June or July. The seminar will be broadcast via the internet; we will inform you of the date and time when they are announced. If you have questions regarding the Risk/Return Summary XBRL requirement, please contact Lee Butler for technical matters (202-326-5931 or lbutler@ici.org), or Mara Shreck for legal matters (202-326-5923 or mshreck@ici.org).
Lee Butler
Director, Information Services
endnotes
* See ICI memorandum 23272, dated February 24, 2009.