That's not to say organizations that implement XBRL don't benefit. Consider the Maryland Association of CPAs. While MACPA is not a typical public company filer --- it's a nonprofit organization with a $6 million budget and 38 employees --- its management saw some value to implementing XBRL, says Skip Falatko director of finance and administration. They would gain an understanding of the impact of the shift to XBRL on many of their members, and could more easily analyze and manipulate MACPA's own financial information.

The MACPA purchased XBRL software, and in January, an intern began working part-time with it to tag elements within MACPA's financial statements. He shifted to full-time this summer. Falatko, who also spends a couple of hours a week on the project, expects it to wrap up this fall.

So far, MACPA has tagged the data and begun building reports. While it's too early to see definitive results, Falatko expects that XBRL will allow the MACPA "to populate financial reports and key performance indicator reports internally, in a better, faster, quicker way," Falatko says.

In addition, Falatko will be able to click on a revenue or expense number and see the underlying components, down to the transaction level, reducing the need for backup spreadsheets and PDF files.

Scott Di Valerio is chief financial officer with Coinstar Inc., the company behind redbox DVD rentals and Coinstar coin-counting machines. Coinstar began filing in XBRL last year. The IDEA, or Interactive Data Electronic Applications, database designed to collate the XBRL tags on electronic filings, will offer some benefits, Di Valerio says. "As the software advances, it will enable the everyday user to search the IDEA database, via Excel or other add-ins, extending the benefits for companies to use internally," for functions like benchmarking and pricing, he says.