What is XBRL??

[Sameer]

I was reading accounting news a few days ago on this website and came across a new term "EXtensible Business Reporting Language"(XBRL).

Since i am not a tech-savvy person, so i couldnt understand a thing what that news was trying to say <img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>... but from whatever i could gather from that news article, it sounded like that this XBRL thingy could be the next big thing ... savior of some sorts for the accounting profession!

Can somebody please elaborate what it is and how can it help us accountants?

[Ashfaque Shaikh]

XBRL is the reporting language for business. Based on XML,a sister of HTML (if I am right), it is a codification of standard taggings that will be used for business reporting.
In layman's words it is the next step for financial reporting in particular and general business data exchange in general.
So in future, we might see IAS-compatible financial statements available as web pages using standardised taggings.
This has significant implication for internet, intranet and web-based applications. I mean you can imagine the extent of its usage in everyday financial information exchange as a standard.
Other implications are cross-border financial information reporting and exchange which will benefit tremendously and perhaps overcome the language barrier as well.

[Ashfaque Shaikh]

XBRL is the reporting language for business. Based on XML,a sister of HTML (if I am right), it is a codification of standard taggings that will be used for business reporting.
In layman's words it is the next step for financial reporting in particular and general business data exchange in general.
So in future, we might see IAS-compatible financial statements available as web pages using standardised taggings.
This has significant implication for internet, intranet and web-based applications. I mean you can imagine the extent of its usage in everyday financial information exchange as a standard.
Other implications are cross-border financial information reporting and exchange which will benefit tremendously and perhaps overcome the language barrier as well.

[Ashfaque Shaikh]

XBRL is the reporting language for business. Based on XML,a sister of HTML (if I am right), it is a codification of standard taggings that will be used for business reporting.
In layman's words it is the next step for financial reporting in particular and general business data exchange in general.
So in future, we might see IAS-compatible financial statements available as web pages using standardised taggings.
This has significant implication for internet, intranet and web-based applications. I mean you can imagine the extent of its usage in everyday financial information exchange as a standard.
Other implications are cross-border financial information reporting and exchange which will benefit tremendously and perhaps overcome the language barrier as well.

[Cricketer]

hmmm.... ashfaque can you point me to some informative websites where i could read about XBRL?

The explanation you have given sounds too good to be true.

[Ashfaque Shaikh]

http//www.xbrl.org/