XBRL is the business reporting standard. It’s used by millions of businesses to prepare, validate and submit actionable business reports to regulators, government agencies and business partners.
XBRL reports use dictionaries of defined terms to ensure that consistent and comparable information is prepared, checked and published. XBRL takes the information buried in paper documents or in proprietary formats and makes it usable data.
The XBRL Standard is a toolkit that allows the creation of better business information in different ways, for different purposes. Building on a strong base specification, there are a number of optional additional modules including:
Smart Disclosures or InlineXBRL is a way of presenting financial statements and other customised reports inside web pages in a way that can be read by humans and consumed by machines. Used for regulatory reporting by securities regulators, business registrars and stock exchanges where there is a need to allow companies to provide complex, unique business reports and market disclosures, in a way that is both human and machine readable.
Smart Templates, or the “Table Linkbase” allow the software-independent production of forms or templates, including complex, multidimensional data sets. Frequently used for risk reports, allowing banks and insurance companies to file consistent data with their regulators.
XBRL Formula is an add-on module that allows data quality rules as well as ratios and other derived concepts to be created. Used to actively manage the quality of reporting, with rules typically published and available to filing organisations. The rules can be run prior to submission, without the data leaving the filer’s control. Combined with regulator-only quality rules that look for anomalies or trigger additional follow up, these business rules greatly enhance data quality.
To get started regulators, governments and enterprises that want higher quality information choose the parts of the standard they want to use, define their dictionaries (or “taxonomies”) and start collecting information using one or more of the many interoperable processing platforms available. Find out more here: Getting Started for Regulators.
XBRL is used around the world by more than 10 million companies in 60 countries to provide high quality structured data to more than 100 regulators. It is used by:
Financial Regulators, including banking and insurance regulators to collect complex risk reports about the health of financial services firms. This data is used to support regulatory decision making and analysis. This data is typically, although not always, held confidentially.
Securities regulators and stock exchanges, to collect fundamental data – generally financial statements and earnings data for provision to market participants.
Tax Authorities to collect corporate financial statements and other corporate data to assist with assessing corporate tax.
Business Registrars or Corporate Registrars use XBRL to collect and republish financial statements from private and public companies in order to provide structured data to market participants, lenders and supply chains.
Enterprises are starting to use XBRL taxonomies and reports to implement management reporting and business intelligence.
Governments use XBRL to collect information from across the public sector, often as part of an Open Data initiative. Efforts to enhance financial accountability and improve automation within the administration of public finance are increasing.
National efforts to reduce red tape, called Standardised Business Reporting, or SBR, use XBRL to move reporting into the electronic age and to minimise the number and complexity of reporting terms that companies need to provide to government.
The XBRL standard is developed and managed by XBRL International in the public interest. Our specifications are open and freely licensed. It costs nothing to use or mandate the XBRL specifications.
However, Membership in the consortium supports the ongoing development and management of the specifications and provides access to a range of guidance and best practice materials. For example:
XBRL International serves to improve the accountability and transparency of business performance globally, by providing the data exchange standard for business reporting.
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XBRL International is a global not for profit operating in the public interest. Our purpose is to improve the accountability and transparency of business performance globally, by providing the open data exchange standard for business reporting.
