What is XBRL?

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XBRL is an extensible, open standard on top of XML. XBRL extends XML to improve the efficiency, accuracy and transparency of reporting and information exchange. The key to the power of XBRL is the concept of a taxonomy, or metadata model. The taxonomy not only tags the data but also defines structure to the information being exchanged, business rules that operate on the information, and a framework for easily creating new taxonomies by extending existing ones. Taxonomies exist today for a wide range of business applications including US GAAP, IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standard), CRAS (Credit Risk Assessment Services), XBRL-GL and the COREP/FINREP (under Basel II Accord).

Why XBRL?

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XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is being adopted all around the world to address the problems of inefficiency in Business Reporting. The implementation and deployment of XBRL will drastically reduce the costs of information collection and validation as well as internal information conversion and dissemination, thereby drastically reducing the cost of information exchange.

The computational validation capabilities provided by XBRL improves the quality and time performance of a company's information exchange processes. Deployment of XBRL within an organization increases the business value of data, provides data transparency, and engages employees at all levels to be empowered by internal and external data.

Regulators adopting XBRL as the required standard for filing see many benefits, starting with more accurate filings because of the power to embed business rules and calculations within XBRL. This leads to a reduced administrative burden, providing better oversight at reduced costs. These regulators then drive companies to adopt XBRL as they need to report in the XBRL format to meet their compliance requirements. Once organizations make the effort to report externally in XBRL, they also realize the benefits of efficient reporting. XBRL also provides ready-made taxonomies for various compliance needs such as IFRS, US GAAP, and many others.

Implementation

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The first requirement of an XBRL implementation is the development of a taxonomy to standardize the concepts and their interpretation. This taxonomy can be built from scratch, or it can be based on an existing taxonomy made available by an industry group (such as IFRS). Next, the project would need to build a technical infrastructure that can handle XBRL information. It would need to build validation capabilities to ensure the structure and information are correct and in compliance with the XBRL specification and defined business rules. It would need to build capabilities for storage, retrieval, and management of the XBRL information.

XBRL Components

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1. UBmatrix Taxonomy Designer
   A desktop tool used to develop a taxonomy for your organization, or to extend an existing standard taxonomy as well as maintain any future changes.
2. SQL Power XBRL Forms
   XBRL Forms provides an easy-to-use front end for users to submit financial information and verify the validity of their submission. XBRL Forms is incredibly easy to implement and handles changes to your data reporting needs virtually maintenance-free.
3. UBmatrix Processing Engine
   This engine provides taxonomy and instance document validation and conversion modules which allow for transformation of XBRL from and into Excel, CVS, XML or HTML.
4. UBmatrix XBRL Database Adaptor
   Provides the most powerful and effective method for managing and storing XBRL data. It fulfills the database storage requirements that provide the speed, scalability, and security required by organizations looking to implement an XBRL-based reporting system.
5. SQL Power XBRL Analytics
   XBRL Analytics bundles SQL Power's proven ETL technology with the SQL Power Wabit Enterprise BI Reporting Tool to deliver affordable and timely reporting and analytics against XBRL data.
6. UBmatrix Enterprise Application Suite (not shown)
   This server-based suite is used for the deployment of large-scale XBRL applications. It includes Taxonomy Manager, Reporting Manager and administration tools to provide access control.
7. UBmatrix Report Builder (not shown)
   Report Builder provides a desktop tool for creating, interacting with, and validating XBRL documents though Microsoft Excel.