Nasdaq, Microsoft, PwC Launch Pilot Program For Financial Reporting

Compiled ByJill Jusko Three organizations, including the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., have joined forces to develop a program they say will make financial reporting easier. Nasdaq, along with Microsoft Corp. and PricewaterhouseCoopers, are showcasing -- via a pilot program -- a new platform developed for corporate reporting over the Internet. The new platform, called XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language), streamlines the ways companies report and publish their financial data, and how analysts and investors can review that information, the program leaders say. The pilot will provide investors with remote access to financial data from the financial reports of 21 Nasdaq-listed companies starting with a company's most recent financials and going back five years. The data will be formatted in XBRL. The pilot program, designed by PwC and stored on Nasdaq hardware, provides access to XBRL data through Microsoft Office. The program is available at www.nasdaq.com/xbrl.