XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is revolutionising business reporting around the world. It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data. It is an open standard, free of licence fees, being developed by a non-profit making international consortium. Other pages on this web site provide detailed information on XBRL, its technical features and its business opportunities.
XBRL can be applied to a very wide range of business and financial data. Among other things, it can handle:
Company internal and external financial reporting.
Business reporting to all types of regulators, including tax and financial authorities, central banks and goverments.
Filing of loan reports and applications; credit risk assessments.
Exchange of information between government departments or between other institutions, such as central banks.
Authorative accounting literature - providing a standard way of describing accounting documents provided by authoritative bodies.
A wide range of other financial and statistical data which needs to be stored, exchanged and analysed.
See the XBRL and Business section of this web site, which gives detail on the benefits which different types of organisation can gain from XBRL.
XBRL is set to become the standard way of recording, storing and transmitting business financial information. It is capable of use throughout the world, whatever the language of the country concerned, for a wide variety of business purposes. It will deliver major cost savings and gains in efficiency, improving processes in companies, governments and other organisations.
Who developed XBRL?XBRL is being developed by an international non-profit consortium of major companies, organisations and government agencies. These include the world’s leading accounting, technology, government and financial services bodies. See About the Organisation for more information.
Who currently uses XBRL for financial information?The use of XBRL is growing rapidly around the world and the list of adopters is too big to list here. See XBRL In Action for a list of projects and users and Latest News and Project News for latest information about XBRL progress.
XBRL increases the usability of financial statement information. The need to re-key financial data for analytical and other purposes can be eliminated. By presenting its statements in XBRL, a company can benefit investors and raise its profile. It will also meet the requirements of regulators, lenders and others consumers of financial information, who are increasingly demanding reporting in XBRL. This will improve business relations and lead to a range of benefits.
With full adoption of XBRL, companies can automate data collection. For example, data from different company divisions with different accounting systems can be assembled quickly, cheaply and efficiently. Once data is gathered in XBRL, different types of reports using varying subsets of the data can be produced with minimum effort. A company finance division, for example, could quickly and reliably generate internal management reports, financial statements for publication, tax and other regulatory filings, as well as credit reports for lenders. Not only can data handling be automated, removing time-consuming, error-prone processes, but the data can be checked by software for accuracy.
There are a number of ways to create financial statements in XBRL:
XBRL-aware accounting software products are becoming available which will support the export of data in XBRL form. These tools allow users to map charts of accounts and other structures to XBRL tags.
Statements can be mapped into XBRL using XBRL software tools designed for this purpose.
Data from accounting databases can be extracted in XBRL format. It is not strictly necessary for an accounting software vendor to use XBRL; third party products can achieve the transformation of the data to XBRL.
Applications can transform data in particular formats into XBRL. For example, web sites are in operation which transform EDGAR filings in the United States into XBRL, providing more efficient access to specific data in the filings.
The route which an individual company may take will depend on its requirements and the accounting software and systems it currently uses, among other factors. For more information see the answer to the question on How do I start putting XBRL to use in my organisation?.
How do I start putting XBRL to use in my organisation?The first step is normally to contact your local XBRL organisation or "jurisdiction" -- contact information is under XBRL Around the World. Programmes for the use of XBRL are already under way in many countries and you will find information on most of these under Projects in the XBRL in Action section or jurisdiction websites. These programmes will usually provide technical support or guidance for those taking part.
We do not provide a single "starter pack" for implementing XBRL because uses and circumstances vary greatly around the world, but plenty of support is available for adopters. If you cannot get local help, please contact info@xbrl.org.
XBRL also runs open discussion groups where non-members can ask for specific help: see the Discussion Groups page. Members can gain support from a range of internal groups.
We do not provide a single "starter pack" for implementing XBRL because uses and circumstances vary greatly around the world, but plenty of support is available for adopters. If you cannot get local help, please contact info@xbrl.org.
XBRL also runs open discussion groups where non-members can ask for specific help: see the Discussion Groups page. Members can gain support from a range of internal groups.
Where can I find software which will help me create or use XBRL? Software tools for specific tasks are listed on the Tools page on this site. For a general list of the services and software provided by XBRL members, see the Products and Services page.
How do I find out more about XBRL?There is a lot of information on this website: please go to the Site Guide which will help guide you on where to look for specific information. Contact Us gives specific contacts for particular questions, while general or technical issues concerning XBRL can also be raised on our public Discussion Groups.
Does XBRL have Discussion Groups in which members of the public can participate? Yes. Please see our Discussion Groups page for more information.
Why are Accounting Institutes around the world taking a major role in the XBRL consortium? A core purpose of Accounting Institutes around the world is to enhance the access, quality and breadth of financial information available to the investing public. XBRL will help achieve this. Institutes also believe that the development of XBRL will help position their members as valued knowledge providers for their clients. Businesses, large and small, are undergoing fundamental change. Accountants, as the managers of the underlying language of business, can help organisations fit into the new digital world, solve business issues and capitilise on opportunities.
What will you charge for people to use your specification to create financial statements? Nothing. XBRL is royalty-free.
Does XBRL cause a change in accounting standards? No. XBRL is simply a language for transmitting information. It must accurately reflect data reported under different standards – it does not change them.
The IASB is developing a taxonomy which reflects International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). National XBRL jurisidictions will extend this taxonomy to reflect their particular local implementation of IFRS. Taxonomies will thus be available to enable those reporting under IFRS in different countries to use XBRL, enhancing efficiency and comparability as adoption of IFRS expands around the world.
Does XBRL benefit the comparability of financial statements?XBRL benefits comparability by helping to identify data which is genuinely alike and distinguishing information which is not comparable.
Who can join XBRL?Membership of the XBRL Consortium is open to all organisations and companies of any size, from one-person consultancies to multi-national corporations or government agencies. Academics are also welcome and have a special category of membership.
How do I join XBRL?Your company should join the local XBRL jurisdiction. Academics can also join as members. The section How to Join gives details.
What are the benefits of membership?Joining the XBRL consortium provides a range of business benefits. These centre on an early understanding of the opportunities which XBRL offers, support in implementing XBRL and the possibility of gaining a significant lead in introducing XBRL in products and services. The Benefits section gives more information about the advantages of membership.
Your organisation must join XBRL as a member for the jurisdiction or country in which you work. You can then submit a request to register as a user of the site through the members log-in screen. (The user registration form will show you whether your company is a member of the local jurisdiction.) If you are an academic, you can also join as a member, and register as a site user through the members log-in screen. If you or your company is not a member, please see the How to Join section.
TopWhat are the fees for membership?Fees vary with jurisdiction and with type of organisation. Bigger organisations generally pay more than smaller, while academic members pay low fees. XBRL International is non-profit making, so all fees go towards XBRL development and promotion. Different jurisdictions may have different levels of activity so may have slightly different fee levels. Please contact your local jurisdiction or XBRL International for more information.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a standard way of marking up a document so it can be published on the World Wide Web and viewed in a browser. It provides a set of pre-defined tags describe on how content appears in a browser. For example, it describes the font and color of text. It gives little information on meaning or context. XML (Extensible Markup Language) uses tags to identify the meaning, context and structure of data.
XML is a standard language which is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML does not replace HTML; it is a complementary format that is platform independent, allowing XML data to be rendered on any device such as a computer, cell phone, PDA or tablet device. It enables rich, structured data to be delivered in a standard, consistent way. Whereas HTML offers a fixed, pre-defined number of tags, XML neither defines nor limits tags. Instead, XML provides a framework for defining tags (i.e. taxonomy) and the relationship between them (i.e. schema).
XBRL is an XML-based schema that focuses specifically on the requirements of business reporting. XBRL builds upon XML, allowing accountants and regulatory bodies to identify items that are unique to the business reporting environment. The XBRL schema defines how to create XBRL documents and XBRL taxonomies, providing users with a set of business information tags that allows users to identify business information in a consistent way. XBRL is also extensible in that users are able to create their own XBRL taxonomies that define and describe tags unique to a given environment.
What is the difference between XBRL and FpML, Fix, FinXML, OFX, XML/EDI? Are all of these efforts needed? All of these identified efforts are transaction-oriented specifications for specific purposes except for XBRL. XBRL is reporting-oriented. All of these efforts are needed since they all serve different purposes. As these transaction-oriented specifications grow and develop, the need for business reporting that captures aggregate transactions becomes even more important. As a result, XBRL becomes more critical to organizations using XML technology.
XBRL 2.0 published in December 2001 had a 41 page specification and the 2.1 Specification of December 2003 has over 150 pages. What accounts for this?Many of the pages consistute the XML Schemas defining XBRL, and the change log. In the remaining pages, there are many more examples, fragments included from the defining schemas, greater detail about pre-existing XBRL 2.0 features, and detailed explanations of the new features.
How will users benefit from the more detailed technical exposition of existing features In XBRL 2.1? There have always been restrictions on what is a meaningful taxonomy schema, meaningful linkbase, and meaningful instances. In the past many of these criteria were implicit; these criteria are now part of the specfication. In some cases, they may be enforced using XML Schema, requiring no new code to be written, and in other cases the specification enables vendors to write correct validation code. Examples of these technical enhancements include: a detailed exposition of handling variable precision numbers, prohibitions on certain kinds of loops in relationships, and prohibition of duplicated data in instances. The meaning of calculation links and their ability to express relationships between items in different tuples has been specified precisely.
What are the new XBRL 2.1 features that developers and users can choose to benefit from?Domain experts and application developers can now encode more precise information about financial reporting concepts in XBRL taxonomies. They can also define the handling of new relationships not defined by XBRL itself. New relationships allow taxonomy authors to connect taxonomy definitions to authoritative definitions and other supporting documentation.
A number of taxonomies which are compliant with Specification 2.0 are published on the XBRL International web site. Will these be upgraded to comply with Specification 2.1?Yes, we expect taxonomy authors gradually to upgrade their taxonomies to 2.1. This is a prerequisite for conformance with the Financial Reporting Taxonomies Architecture (FRTA) 1.0. However, 2.0 versions of these taxonomies may may also be made available at the discretion of the taxonomy authors.
What does the XBRL 2.1 conformance suite consist of? The conformance suite consists of over 250 example taxonomy fragments (XML Schema and XLink files) and instance documents, containing both valid and invalid usage. It will help application developers ensure their software processes XBRL correctly.
Who developed the XBRL 2.1 specification?The XBRL International Domain Working Group developed a detailed set of requirements which were then implemented by the XBRL International Specification Working Group. For a complete list of editors, contributors and other individuals involved, see the text of the specification.
Where can I obtain a set of XBRL 2.1 documents to test my software with? The XBRL 2.1 Conformance Suite is posted in a large (more than 5MB) zip file on the XBRL International web site, alongside the XBRL 2.1 specification. The Conformance Suite contains over 250 separate XBRL instances. Although the instances are small, there is a subset of them that are specifically designed to exercise each feature of an XBRL instance and their interactions.
What kind of database should be used with XBRL? XBRL is a format for exchanging information between applications. Therefore each application will store data in whatever form is most effective for its own requirements and import and export information in XBRL format so that it can be readily imported or exported in turn by other applications. In some applications, for example, the XBRL formatted information being used may be mostly tabular numeric information, hence easily manipulated in a relational database. In other applications, the XBRL information may consist of narrative document-like structures with a lot of text, so that a native XML database may be more appropriate. There is no mandatory relationship between XBRL and any particular database or other processing or storage architecture
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