EarningsDirect is a simple, service-based offering

Either

• Download an EarningsDirect template from BusinessWire.com
• Populate the simple, Excel-based template with earnings data and upload it to Business Wire Connect, together with the relevant news release
• Select a newswire distribution and the EarningsDirect XBRL data is distributed simultaneously with the earnings news release to the chosen geographic circuit

Or

• Provide a draft set of your accounts (the disclosures rather than the numbers) to Business Wire. Specialised CoreFiling consultants will develop a customized template in Excel that matches your exact disclosure requirements, mapping your disclosures to the relevant official XBRL elements that represent each GAAP concept, or create custom, company-specific extensions, as required.
• Review the template with Business Wire and CoreFiling specialists, and update it with the numbers being disclosed. Submit the file to the Business Wire service for conversion into an Intelligent Financial Statement.
• Finally, review the resultant Intelligent Financial Statement and then approve its release by Business Wire.

The components of EarningsDirect

EarningsDirect has three components:

• The EarningsDirect template, produced in Microsoft Excel and marked with TagTips, indicating how the data presented is mapped to XBRL. As Excel is a defacto standard in business, this opens XBRL adoption to everyone. Shown top left.
• The Intelligent Financial Statement, a PDF with XBRL embedded and TagTips. The IFS provides a convenient package that is human readable but which embeds the XBRL report. TagTips provide the essential connection between the data viewed and the data presented as XBRL. Shown centre right.
• The XBRL report, marked up as standard XBRL 2.1 and validated with True North, the leading XBRL validator and processing engine. Shown bottom left.

Innovation and timeliness

EarningsDirect is not only first of its kind, it's one of a kind. No other system exists today to deliver XBRL simultaneously with the earnings release. EarningsDirect puts the numbers that the markets are waiting for right into the models of analysts, investor's systems and journalists stories.

The EarningsDirect release travels in tandem with the traditional earnings news release via Business Wire's proven NX platform. The Intelligent Financial Statement provides the data in a way that can be read by humans as well as computer systems.

Two levels of instant, accurate data

EarningsDirect Level 1 provides fundamental performance information to analysts, investors and the financial media based on a standard earnings news release template. Companies can be confident that their information is being relayed to the market instantly and accurately and will populate financial models within seconds of the release time.

The EarningsDirect Custom Template is a fully customized service tailored to mirror the financial and performance information contained in the earnings news release. The EarningsDirect Custom Template service involves a brief consulting engagement carried out by CoreFiling. CoreFiling works directly with clients to map an earnings release to the appropriate XBRL tags. The client receives an EarningsDirect template that works directly with the Business Wire service.

Why EarningsDirect matters

With EarningsDirect, you can pluck relevant information out of the release instantly and accurately. Since the market is poised around revenue, cost and income forecasts, this technology brings companies and investors closer together. EarningsDirect represents a market-based initiative, instead of a regulatory one. EarningsDirect allows market players to use this information the way they want to, and we expect that once investors start to use information that comes directly from companies, they will quickly get used to the speed and accuracy that XBRL provides.

Further information

EarningsDirect is available to all SEC registrants. Please refer to www.businesswire.com for more information.