Charlie Hoffman receives award for pioneering XBRL work

14 December 2006

Charlie Hoffman, who conceived the idea of XBRL, has received the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) Special Recognition Award for his pioneering work in proposing and helping to develop the language.

Mr Hoffman, currently Director of Industry Solutions-Financial Reporting at UBMatrix, started investigating how XML could be used for electronic reporting of financial information in 1998 while working as a CPA with the firm Knight Vale and Gregory in Tacoma, Washington.  He proposed the idea to the AICPA High Tech Task Force and eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) was born. 

Mr Hoffman and other accounting and technical experts worked together on initial prototypes and business plans for XBRL under the auspices of the AICPA.  Since the creation of the XBRL International (XII) consortium, he has continued to play a leading role in helping to develop and promote the standard.  As well as serving on key XBRL working groups and being formally recognised as a contributor to the XBRL Specification and other XII technical documents, Mr Hoffman has published a number of books on XBRL and travelled widely to explain the benefits of the language. 

“Charlie has lived and breathed XBRL since the late 1990s and truly deserves this recognition," said Sunir Kapoor, UBmatrix President and CEO. "The endorsement the AICPA award represents is noteworthy, both in terms of Charlie's efforts, and to XBRL as a game-changing technology. The accounting profession - indeed business reporting in general - will never be the same."

Accepting the award, Mr Hoffman emphasised the teamwork which was contributing to the success of XBRL.

"People call me 'the father of XBRL', but I like to refer to myself as the guy who did the obvious.  I was in the right place at the right time, with the right set of skills," he said.

Mr Hoffman’s books include "XBRL Essentials", a non-technical introduction to XBRL and "Financial Reporting Using XBRL: IFRS and US GAAP Edition", a guide for accountants in using XBRL.  His contributions to XBRL International documents are extensive;  they include the co-authorship of the XBRL International’s Financial Reporting Taxonomy Architecture (FRTA) document which guides the creation of taxonomies. 

Announced by:

Peter Calvert

XBRL International

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