Assurance on XBRL-Related Documents: The Case of United Technologies Corporation

The eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) was developed to provide financial information users with a standardized method to prepare, publish, and exchange business information in digital format. XBRL is being used around the world for financial reporting and government e-filings. Although there has been growing awareness about assurance issues related to the use of XBRL, current audit practices and standards fall short of providing the needed guidance for the provision of assurance on XBRL-Related Documents. In this paper, we report on a mock assurance engagement that we conducted on the XBRL-Related Documents of United Technologies Corporation's 10-Q for the third quarter of 2005 and repeated on its 10-Q for the third quarter of 2008 to identify the issues that companies and auditors might encounter if they are requested to provide assurance on XBRL-Related Documents. We describe the assurance framework applied in the mock assurance engagement, present the findings from the examination process, and discuss future research opportunities associated with XBRL documents assurance.