What Is eXtensible Business Reporting Language?
A software standard called XBRL, or Extensible Business Reporting Language, was created to facilitate the sharing and compilation of financial data by enhancing communication. XML, or extensible markup language, is a standard used for defining and organizing data online. Notably, the eXtensible Business Reporting Language is an implementation of XML.
XBRL tags enable programmatic use of the data by XBRL-compatible applications by uniquely identifying each financial item of data. XBRL makes it simple to transfer data across companies.
Understanding eXtensible Business Reporting Language
Consider yourself browsing the financial accounts of a corporation on its website. These claims would often just be written in simple language. You need to manually enter or copy and paste each account and number into the spreadsheet to analyze the statements using this data.
On the other hand, if the information on the website was accessible in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), you could quickly transfer it from the website into an XBRL-compatible spreadsheet tool (typically instantly).
Financial data from one nation, which has fixed accounting standards like U.S. GAAP, may be assembled into the approved accounting standards of another country, even if they are pretty different, because of the standardized nature of the identifying tags and the language itself. While not all businesses must disclose financial data in XBRL, it has become commonplace. Therefore, it’s possible that, not too long from now, all companies will need to record their financial data in this format. A modification known as iXBRL—which stands for inline—allows XBRL information to be placed into an HTML text.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) created version 1.0 of XBRL in 1998. In 2003, the most recent version of the standards, v2.1, was established. Although the v2.1 middle has mostly stayed the same since then, several plug-in XBRL modules have been created to provide additional operability or functionality.
Conclusion
- A free worldwide framework of accounting standards called eXtensible Company Reporting Language (XBRL) is used to exchange company data.
- XBRL is a global standard for sending financial data built on XML coding.
- XBRL v2.1, the most recent version, was released in 2003 and has been stable. There are many add-on modules available.
