Sending a correspondence to the SEC via EDGAR can raise questions about how to prepare the filing and how it should be filed. Unlike other information sent to EDGAR, a correspondence can be included as either an exhibit to a filing or it can be transmitted as a separate filing altogether using Form CORRESP.

The SEC announced that along with EDGAR 15.3, they would also be rolling out some SSL changes. The SEC will remove support for SSLv3 from their server, requiring all EDGAR filers to use the TLSv1.0 protocol. For the average filer, “SSL” and “TLS” may be completely foreign terms. You might be wondering: “What is SSL?” and “Does this affect my EDGAR filings?”. To know what the SSL changes mean at the SEC for your company, you’ll first have to take a short trip into the land of Internet security.

With the second quarter Q season in full swing, many filers are noticing for the first time that the SEC has changed their XBRL viewer. Because the SEC released a new version of the viewer between major filing deadlines, the update happened without a lot of notice. In this article, we will cover the changes the SEC made to their viewer and discuss both the improvements that were made as well as some new problems filers might be encountering.

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved a new rule on Wednesday August 5^th that requires publicly-traded U.S firms to disclose the pay gap between their CEOs’ annual compensation and the median compensation of their other employees.

On August 3, 2015, EDGAR 15.2.2 was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This release contained new EDGAR forms and new EDGAR applicant types.

The SEC has proposed a new rule (Rule 10D-1) and rule amendments that would require national securities exchanges and national securities associations to establish listing standards requiring each issuer listed on its exchange to develop and implement a policy that provides for the recovery of incentive-based compensation that was erroneously awarded to its officers (a “clawback” policy). Issuers would also be required to file the policy to the SEC as an exhibit to its annual report and to include additional disclosures within both their annual report and their proxy statements regarding clawback actions taken by the company.

A new form for money market funds that was finalized by the SEC in Release 33-9616 (Money Market Fund Reform; Amendments to Form PF) recently became effective for filing to EDGAR. This form, Form N-CR, has raised questions from preparers and registrants alike who want to know more about the form, when it should be filed, and how to file it.

The XBRL US Center for Data Quality has launched a public review for seven proposed validation rules. These rules are available for comment by public companies, data providers, analysts and XBRL providers for sixty days and pertain to providing validation tests for XBRL errors.

On April 29, the SEC proposed new rules to require companies to disclose the relationship between their executive pay and their financial performance. The goal is to provide shareholders with a new metric to assess a company’s executive compensation relative to its performance and to be able to compare that metric across a peer group. This would also provide shareholders additional information to increase transparency and help better inform them when they vote to elect directors or vote on executive compensation.

On May 20, the Securities and Exchange Commission published a proposed rule (Release Number 33-9776) that would modernize information reported to the EDGAR System by investment companies and investment advisers. Reporting for mutual funds, ETFs, and registered investment companies would be enhanced through new forms and amendments.

On May 20, the Securities and Exchange Commission published a proposed rule (Release Number IA-4091) to amend certain rules under the Investment Advisers Act. The aim of the changes is to fill data gaps, to enhance reporting requirements, and to allow for “umbrella registration” for private fund advisers.

One of the more challenging aspects of preparing XBRL reports for the SEC is the uncertainty that comes with how that report will view when stakeholders, clients or investors open that data in the SEC’s Interactive Data Viewer. It can be discouraging to put the final touches on a 10-Q or 10-K only to find that something doesn’t look quite right when you send it to the SEC’s previewer or - even worse - to the EDGAR System. What looked completely fine in your editor suddenly doesn’t look anything like the report you were editing.