XII is seeking candidates for the Standards Board (XSB), Best Practices Board (BPB) and Certification Board (XCB).

The deadline for all submissions of candidate statements and for nominees to confirm they accept nomination is 2359 UTC, 17 June 2013.

There is no limit on the length of candidate statements. Please send nominations, candidate statements and confirmation of acceptance of nominations, if applicable, by PRIVATE E-MAIL to nominate@xbrl.org.

Learn more on a host of topics, including Business Intelligence, Business Registries, Financial Regulation, Non-Financial Reporting, Banking, Insurance, Taxation and more. http://archive.xbrl.org/26th/

(Tuesday 16 April 2013) – ACORD and XBRL International, in collaboration with BR-AG (Business Reporting Advisory Group), today released a discussion paper examining touchpoints between the XBRL Solvency II taxonomy and ACORD's Global Reinsurance and Large Commericial (GRLC) standards. The paper's release was announced jointly by BR-AG's CEO Michal Piechocki and ACORD's Chief Industry and Government Affairs Officer, Ann Henstrand during the 26th XBRL International Conference in Dublin, Ireland.

The discussion paper explores the notion that there is a common subset of data between the two sets of standards which can be mapped to achieve efficiency, consistency, and reliability.  The ACORD GRLC standards and the XBRL Solvency II taxonomy are the initial focus for interoperability opportunities between the standards, given the advent of Solvency II regulatory reporting requirements for insurers in EU member states.

"ACORD believes that collaboration between data organizations is important. Working together, we can more quickly build data roadmaps for consistent use in all insurer operations systems. This paper is an important marker toward the goal of more accurate and efficient communication and data exchange," said Gregory A. Maciag, President and CEO, ACORD.

"The broad acceptance of XBRL proves that the need for efficient sharing of business information is not confined to any one industry or reporting requirement. With this detailed exploration of how two standards can complement each other, we are opening up new possibilities for both XII and ACORD. We look forward to working closely with the insurance industry to uncover more we can do together," said Tony Fragnito, CEO of XBRL International.

Michal Piechocki, CEO of BR-AG, of Poznan, Poland, who co-authored the paper with ACORD's Puneet Bharal, said, "The utility and reliability of XBRL data will be enhanced by working with existing vertical industry standards, such as ACORD for insurance.   BR-AG is pleased to contribute to this proof-of-concept work, and looks forward to more extensive community discussions and possible development of real-life business use cases."

XBRL is a well-established and growing global standard for the sharing of business information in sectors such as securities regulation, taxation, banking, insurance and non-financial areas like carbon disclosure and risk reporting , while ACORD is a well-established and growing global standard primarily used for insurance industry transactions in all insurer sectors.  ACORD standards also contain an insurance industry framework made up of five inter-related facets including a business glossary, data model, component model, capability model and information model.  These ACORD insurance industry models are identified in the discussion paper as the means by which a unifying data dictionary encompassing both standards could be created to support future mappings for consistency and ease.

Next steps identified by the two organizations include the formation of a joint working group with representation from the XBRL regulatory, accounting and financial reporting communities, along with  IT, data architecture, and insurance business community members from ACORD. The group will further explore efficiencies which may be achievable in other parts of the world, and using the full scope of ACORD's standards including general insurance, life and annuities, and more.

For a copy of the discussion paper, please see: http://xbrl.org/sites/xbrl.org/files/imce/xii_acord_brag_discussionpaper.pdf. To indicate interest in participating in the joint XBRL-ACORD Working Group, please contact:  Puneet Bharal, Director of Implementation Services, pbharal@acord.org.

(4 April 2013) -- Versioning Specifications are Now Released as Recommendation

XBRL International is pleased to announce that the XBRL Standards Board, at the request of the XBRL Versioning Working Group, has approved as Recommendation (REC) the Versioning Specifications including Base, Concept Use, Concept Details, and Dimensions. 

XBRL International would like to thank the members of the working group who have worked so diligently to bring the Versioning Specs to Recommendation, including the following members and their affiliations at the time of contribution:  Roland Hommes, Rhocon; Paul Warren, CoreFiling; Ignacio Hernández-Ros, Reporting Estandar S.L.; Hugh Wallis, XBRL International Inc.; Haiko Philipp, IFRS Foundation; Geoff Shuetrim, Galexy; Ian Stokes-Rees, CoreFiling; David North, CoreFiling; Herm Fischer, Mark V Systems; Richard Ashby, CoreFiling; Raynier van Egmond, C3i SMC LLC; Eric Jarry, Bank of France; Maciej Piechocki, IFRS Foundation; Suguru Washio, Fujitsu Ltd. and Stuart Barker, CoreFiling.

The Specifications can be found at the following links: 

• Versioning - Base (HTML)
• Versioning - Concept Use (HTML)
• Versioning - Concept Details (HTML)
• Versioning - Dimensions (HTML)

The specifications can also be found on the Recommendations page of the XBRL International website:  http://www.xbrl.org/SpecRecommendations.

(1 March 2013) XII has made the first public working draft of the Inline XBRL 1.1 Specification available for comment.  Version 1.1 is the second release of the Specification for Inline XBRL. This version adds to version 1.0 a mechanism for splitting text content within a document; it allows the nesting of ix:nonFraction and ix:fraction; and it replaces the linking mechanism for footnote resources with a structure based on a new element, ix:relationship, which also provides support for fact-explanatoryFact links.

This PWD consists of two parts which can be found at the following links:  Part 0 – Primer 1.1  and Part 1 – Specification 1.1.  Further information is available on the XII website at http://www.xbrl.org/SpecPWDs

Feedback on this release is requested and must be sent to rendering-feedback@xbrl.org.

(6 February 2013) XBRL International has assigned HE Mohammed Al-Hadari, Deputy CEO for Organizational and Support Services Affairs, as its ambassador to the Arab World. In this role he will support XII objectives within the Arab countries, including hosting visitors to study the SCA project, hosting roundtables within the UAE and the region to promote XBRL and active outreach to facilitate connections, meetings and membership recruitment with interested parties within Arab countries.

“Mr. Al-Hadari has made valuable contributions and efforts in spreading and boosting XBRL in the Arab region”, said XII CEO Anthony Fragnito. “We expect the leadership he has shown in the Jurisdiction and in hosting XBRL24 in Abu Dhabi last year to continue to pay dividends in the area of XBRL adoption and the growth of the consortium”.

(1 February 2013) – As part of ongoing work to develop an abstract model of the XBRL specification, XII is seeking software developers and other interested parties to begin use of the current form of the model in their implementations. The second PWD of the Abstract Model may be found at: http://xbrl.org/Specification/abstractmodel-primary/PWD-2012-06-06/abstractmodel-primary-pwd-2012-06-06.html

The abstract model has been developed as a means of establishing a common framework for communicating and understanding the XBRL technology. The model’s conceptual framework for understanding the specification will give developers a strong foundation for implementing XBRL solutions.

For those seeking greater detail, a series of informational webinars on the abstract model may be found at http://www.xbrl.org/abstract-modelling-task-force#webinars

The development of the XII Abstract Model is led by the Abstract Modelling Task Force and includes use case diagrams, class diagrams, object diagrams, and sequence diagrams. It is a key component of Preserve Promote Participate, the strategic core vision developed by the XBRL Standards Board to continue the momentum of the XBRL standard.

Implementation feedback may be sent to modelling-feedback@xbrl.org.

The model has gone through two rounds of public comment – the next step is to see if the model as currently constructed truly meets the needs of the market”, said the AMTF’s Dave Frankel. “Feedback based on actual use in the development of XBRL solutions is critical to advancing the work of the task force”.

The AMTF is Sponsored by:

29 January 2013 – XBRL International is pleased to announce an updated Public Working Draft of the Table Linkbase Specification.  The specification provides a means of representing complex reporting templates. This work has evolved with use cases from several high profile European projects.

The PWD, dated 2013-01-16, represents a major step forward in the maturity of this specification.  Projects evaluating this specification should update references to this latest release and are encouraged to implement and evaluate this specification. XII encourages feedback on experiences and additional use cases to the Rendering Working Group.

XII CEO Tony Fragnito acknowledges the contributions of Herm Fischer, Chair, Victor Morilla and the other members of the Rendering WG, as well as the significant contributions of Jon Siddle and the CoreFiling staff towards this important milestone.

The Table Linkbase PWD may be found at http://www.xbrl.org/SpecPWDs

The XII Best Practices Board is collecting case study examples to serve as the basis for its next webinar series: The Consumption of XBRL Enabled Business Reports. These will explain in simple and convincing terms the different potential usages of XBRL and the benefits of using of structured data for the sharing of information.

Individuals/companies interested in participating are invited to express their interest by completing the web registration form found at http://www.xbrl.org/bpb-webinar-series. Submission will be accepted until 18 January 2013.

Full details may be found at: http://www.xbrl.org/sites/xbrl.org/files/imce/webinar_series_two_consumption.pdf

XII best practice materials are intended to be peer-to-peer resources for both the sharing of knowledge and the promotion of XBRL as a solution to the challenges of business reporting. Investors, academics, software intermediaries, accountants, regulators, standard setters and others are encouraged to share their experiences in using XBRL to positively impact the way they communicate and acquire, navigate, analyse and aggregate the numeric and textual data disclosed within business reports. Corporate filers, who both prepare and consume structured data are also welcomed to share their unique perspective. 

When replying to this call for participation, please also provide a rough presentation outline via e-mail to bpb@xbrl.org 

All nominations will be reviewed by the XII Best Practices Board and you will be contacted within one month of the closing date of this call.     

Proposed Topics:

1. General Overview
1.1. How can XBRL benefit users of business reports - the basics.

2. Specific case studies for each of the following are sought:

1. Use of XBRL for retail investment 
2. Use of XBRL for institutional investment 
3. Use of XBRL for credit analysis
4. Use of XBRL for investment banking
5. Use of XBRL for corporates  
6. Use of XBRL for accountants and auditors
7. Use of XBRL for standard setters
8. Use of XBRL for tax reporting
9. Use of XBRL for banking and insurance supervision 
10. Use of XBRL for economic statistical purposes   
11. Use of XBRL for academic research
12. Use of XBRL for SBR

(19 December 2012) – XBRL International (XII) today announced that the General Purpose Taxonomy of Chinese Accounting Standards (CAS) has been granted “Acknowledged” status by the Taxonomy Recognition Task Force. XII’s multi-step Taxonomy Recognition Process validates the conformance of a taxonomy to the XBRL specification, determines that a taxonomy has been correctly authored, has had sufficient input from the public and meets the needs for which it was created.

The CAS Taxonomy, first released in 2010and first applied in 2011, defines the elements of XBRL and the basic requirements of preparing XBRL financial reporting based on CAS. In 2012, the Ministry of Finance and XBRL China expanded implementation of the CAS Taxonomy and required filing of 2011 annual financial reports in XBRL. Currently 82 large and medium-sized local state-owned enterprises in 17 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities; 18 financial institutions in the banking sector (including all of China's listed banks) and 14 large-scale central-administrated SOEs (of which 12 are listed on the US market) are using the CAS Taxonomy in their filings.

“Achieving Acknowledged status is an important recognition that highlights not just conformance to the XBRL Specification but also the dedication of the authors to the needs of the regulatory, filer and consumer communities,” said Anthony Fragnito, CEO of XII. “the Ministry of Finance and XBRL China continue to show leadership in the implementation of XBRL in one of the largest markets in the world”.

Extensions and modeling methods from the CAS Taxonomy also serve as the foundation for other XBRL taxonomies in China, allowing the MOF to take full advantage of XBRL for cross-jurisdiction regulatory information sharing for the securities and banking sectors. 

• The General Purpose Taxonomy of Chinese Accounting Standards may be accessed at: http://xbrl.mof.gov.cn/taxonomy/2010-09-30/cas_entry_point_2010-09-30.xsd

• Information on the Taxonomy Recognition Process as well as a list of recognized taxonomies, is available on the XII website: http://www.xbrl.org/FRTaxonomies