At a XBRL roundtable discussion Monday, Cox said requiring an audit on converted, raw financial data could mean "crib death" for the XBRL project.

At this time, about two dozen companies are participating in the SEC's voluntary XBRL pilot program, including Comcast Corp. and General Electrics Co.

At the roundtable, representative companies of the pilot program said the costs have been minimal -- as low as $5,000 for the first year, according to Comcast Corp. CEO Larry Salva.

The next step in the project is to create more electronic tags for information such as management discussion and analyses, according to Reuters. These are expected by the fourth quarter, XBRL US vice president Rob Blake reported at the roundtable.

XBRL is the acronym for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. In November, the SEC unveiled a full-text search tool on the SEC's online system, which the SEC said will eventually replace the EDGAR system.

Source: Reuters, "SEC's Cox - XBRL conversion doesn't need an audit." March 20, 2007.