XBRL International, a consortium of more than 200 leading accounting, technology and financial services companies and government agencies, announced today the establishment of two fellow positions at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation (IASC Foundation). Both will be responsible for liaising with the XBRL Consortium and furthering XBRL awareness at both organizations.
FASB
Jennifer Moriarty began her appointment with the FASB as an XBRL Fellow in September 2003. Her initial focus will be on increasing the Board and staff's understanding of XBRL and its implications on the standard-setting process. In addition, Ms. Moriarty will follow the development of GAAP taxonomies by the XBRL Consortium. Prior to serving as a fellow, Ms. Moriarty was employed at KPMG LLP, New York where she served as a senior manager and at Dime Savings Bank of New York as a corporate auditor. Ms. Moriarty attended Adelphi University where she graduated with a B.B.A. degree in accounting.
“We are excited about Jenn joining the FASB staff as XBRL fellow,” said Kim Petrone, Director of Planning, Development & Support Activities, FASB. “Through this fellowship, the FASB expects to be in a stronger position to track new technology developments that impact financial reporting. This, in turn, should assist the Board in advancing the financial reporting model in response to evolving technology and changing financial statement user needs. Jenn's experience with XBRL should be an asset to the FASB.”
IASCF
Josef MacDonald began his two year appointment as the IASB XBRL Practice Fellow in July 2003. In his capacity, Mr. MacDonald is responsible for education and awareness within the IASB, external outreach, and taxonomy development and oversight. In addition, he will work closely with the FASB on the integration of XBRL in the various convergence projects of the two boards. Prior to his appointment as an IASC Foundation XBRL Practice Fellow, Mr. MacDonald served as a manager, National Assurance & Advisory Services, Ernst & Young, New Zealand. Prior to joining Ernst & Young in 1996, Mr. MacDonald trained in the accounting and legal profession. Mr. MacDonald attended Auckland University where he received a law and accounting degree.
“We're very pleased with Josef MacDonald's appoint as XBRL Fellow to the IASC Foundation,” said Kurt Ramin, Commercial Director, IASB. “Now countries in Europe and the Asia Pacific can move forward with development and adoption of XBRL for financial statements using the work developed and supported by the IASB. XBRL incorporates standardized XML data tags formats in financial statements, thereby giving a consistent approach and application of the specification to a particular country's accounting principles so that if one is reading an IFRS based financial statement in the UK, Germany or France it has meaning in Australia or New Zealand.”
XBRL is a royalty free, open specification that uses XML-based data tags to describe financial data in business reports and databases. XBRL benefits all members of the financial information supply chain by making data over the Internet more interoperable and relevant for users and allows the exchange of financial information across all software formats resulting in cheaper, faster and more reliable extraction of financial information of reports or data systems. XBRL-enabled applications use XBRL taxonomies that consist of definitions of financial and business reporting terms expressed in XML Schema, along with rich networks of relationships among those terms expressed using XML Linking Language (XLink).
