A very interesting survey that I found today was the SEC survey related to XBRL. What intrigued me was the cost structure of the XBRL filing. The survey states that the first time filers with block text footnotes and schedules on an average require 125 hours, assuming a $250/hr charge the cost is $31K + footnotes and website posting and software the amount is around $40K. This is the lower bound. To mainitain that the SEC states will be less time comsuming, the survey puts the number of hours for future face of the financials filing to be 17, a reduction of 85%.
Once the first hurdle is taken care of, then comes the more detailed footnote filing and that would be another 70 hours leading to $18K. So in total the companies are looking at a total cost of $75-80K considering their footnotes and financials are comparitively straightforward.
Hopefully the costs associated with the charges of XBRL will be overshadowed by the benefits the process will lead to.
http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2009/33-9002fr.pdf