ACRA Introduction to XBRL

What is XBRL?

XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language, and it is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data worldwide. As one of the family of "XML" languages, it is becoming a standard means of communicating information between businesses and on the internet.

XBRL is being developed by an international non-profit consortium of approximately 450 major companies, organisations and government agencies. It is an open standard, free of licence fees. It is already being put to practical use in a number of countries and implementations of XBRL are growing rapidly around the world. (Source: http://www.xbrl.org/)

Providing major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information, XBRL offers cost savings, greater efficiency, and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data.