FERC XBRL | The 2022 versions of the eForms taxonomies 

If you are based out of the United States, you should know of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates and supervises the distribution of electricity, natural gas, and oil. Every year, all energy companies must submit reports as part of the regulatory compliance procedure. In 2019, the commission launched a mandate for all energy companies to make this submission in an eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format, making the data machine-readable and easier to analyze and monitor. 

Used around the world, XBRL is a system of creating, collecting, and analyzing high-quality, machine-readable information that facilitates quicker decision-making. Each report element pertaining to a specific disclosure is tagged with corresponding labels. This encourages a more streamlined compilation of data and paves the way for accurate, compliant reporting of financial information. 

The FERC has developed an exclusive XBRL taxonomy or machine-readable labels that are used when energy companies submit their annual and quarterly reports to the regulator. 

In 2022, this taxonomy was updated to refine the labels from previous taxonomy versions. While the type of data required to be reported remains the same, specific format changes have been introduced in the final release 2.0 taxonomy. All 2021 FERC Forms (Nos. 1, 1-F, 2, 2-A, 6, 60, and 714) must be filed using the Release 2.0 taxonomy.

What are the changes in the Release 2.0 Taxonomy?

Filers with Waivers or Regulatory Exemptions for Form 2/2-A and Form 6

If only select pages of a form are filled due to a waiver or regulatory exemptions, filers must indicate which schedules have been omitted for each form.

 Instructions to do so are given below: 

• Filers with waivers: A citation to the relevant Commission order granting the waiver has to be entered into the ScheduleWaiver element. This must be matched with every waived schedule using the Remarks dimension on the List of Schedules. 
• Filers with regulatory exemptions: A reference that points to the relevant Commission regulation supporting the exemption must be entered into the ScheduleExemption element. This has to be matched with every exempt schedule using the Remarks dimension on the List of Schedules. 

Data Display 

The format of rendering pages has changed. The result of an upgrade to an XBRL data collection from a Visual FoxPro data collection is the creation of HTML files in place of PDFs. This upgrade to HTML has affected some schedules that previously broke across multiple pages and are now formatted to display on one page. 

 Page Numbers

Although page breaks have been eliminated, the page numbers assigned to schedules in the Visual FoxPro system remain unchanged in the XBRL system. In the Visual FoxPro system, filers could append additional pages to certain schedules and use a decimal to distinguish the page number for that additional page (e.g., 204.1, 204.2, 204.3, etc.). These decimal page numbers are not used in the XBRL HTML rendering of the form. Instead, the original page number(s) assigned to the schedule covers all additional data entered by the filer.

Other minor changes were pertaining to corrections in the labels, adding and removing particular line items, and doing away with certain concepts that were redundant or not used.

Where To Find The Release FERC Taxonomy 2.0?

All communication from FERC regarding the taxonomy update can be viewed here.

The new taxonomy can be viewed on FERC eForms portal / YETI review tool.

You can also view the sample rendering forms validation rules on the Vendor Files Library.

There are two significant features, a finance professional will look for in FERC XBRL software – (i) How quickly the XBRL tags can be mapped and (ii) data transmission from source file (Excel) to FERC XBRL filing platform. 

DataTracks has a flagship FERC XBRL Software – Glacier

With Glacier, you don’t have to know about the XBRL technicalities. It comes with pre-loaded FERC templates which enables users to link their source file directly to the application.

Glacier uses the Data Point Model (DPM) to easily convert financial data into XBRL and make reports ready for submission to the FERC. 

With Glacier, invest your valuable time in the numbers, not in the process. 

To find out how Glacier can significantly reduce the economic burden of your compliance efforts, download this brochure now.