We get questions all of the time that sound like "Why do we show up on the dashboard, but the SEC accepts our filing", or "Why do we need any validation besides the SEC's?"
When you submit to the SEC, there is a validation against (mostly) Section 6 of the EDGAR Filing Manual (EFM). XBRL Cloud and some other vendors provide a very similar validation. In fact, there is a conformance suite to help ensure that vendors can meet or exceed the SEC's validation.
The EDGAR Filing Manual, is just the beginning. There are other published documents (such as the U S GAAP Taxonomy Architecture) that describe common Best Practices or simply common XBRL usage. A high quality validation tool will provide much more feedback than simply EFM-centric validation.
Finally, please remember that verification (of which validation is just one step) is much more valuable and comprehensive than validation. Please see Terminology: Verify for a description of verification.
When you submit to the SEC, there is a validation against (mostly) Section 6 of the EDGAR Filing Manual (EFM). XBRL Cloud and some other vendors provide a very similar validation. In fact, there is a conformance suite to help ensure that vendors can meet or exceed the SEC's validation.
The EDGAR Filing Manual, is just the beginning. There are other published documents (such as the U S GAAP Taxonomy Architecture) that describe common Best Practices or simply common XBRL usage. A high quality validation tool will provide much more feedback than simply EFM-centric validation.
Finally, please remember that verification (of which validation is just one step) is much more valuable and comprehensive than validation. Please see Terminology: Verify for a description of verification.