Uwe Kunzler

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XBRL eXtensible Business Reporting Language
Possibilities offered by

• Uwe Kunzler
• EurostatInformation and Communication
  Technologies

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Context (1)
Statistics
Information CommunicationTechnology (ICT)
Accounting
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Context (2)
e-Business
Internet
Standards
4
e-Business
e-Reporting
e-Commerce
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Evolution of the Internet
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Standards
EDIFACT
XML
Domain Specific XML Standards
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EDIFACT

• EDI for Administration, Commerce and Transport
• Statistical EDIFACT messages
• GESMES Generic Statistical Message
• RDRMES Raw Data Reporting Message
• CUSDEC/INSTAT Intrastat subset of the Customs
  Declaration
• Success stories
• European System of Central Banks (ESCB) uses
  GESMES/CB
• CUSDEC/INSTAT several million copies per year
• Problems relating to EDIFACT
• Perceived being complex and expensive
• Not flexible enough
• Not much accepted

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XML

• eXtensible Markup Language
• Overcomes EDIFACT drawbacks
• Less complex
• Less expensive
• More flexible
• Widely accepted
• Made for the Web
• EDIFACT was the pre-Web standard
• But XML is only the syntax
• Domains have to define their specific XML
  language
• Domains may be industry consortia, professional
  organisations, standardisation bodies, research
  groups, and so on

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XML-based languages

• Domain expertise
• define XML-based languages for specific domains
• add semantics to the syntax
• Two examples of interest for the statistical
  domain
• ebXML
• e-business XML
• UN/CEFACT and OASIS
• supported by Eurostat
• XBRL
• eXtensible Business Reporting Language
• XBRL Steering Committee
• very successful

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XBRL the roots
SGML
Standardized General Markup Language
HTML
HyperText Markup Language
XML
eXtensible Markup Language
XBRL
eXtensible BusinessReporting Language
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What is XBRL ?

• eXtensible Business Reporting Language
• XBRL is
• an XML-based electronic language for financial
  information, reporting and analysis
• an expandable, self-describing,
  platform-independent, standard data exchange
  format
• XBRL is not
• a chart of accounts
• an accounting standard
• XBRL adds reporting to e-Commerce

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Who is supporting XBRL ?

• Over 100 organisations and corporations are
  member of the XBRL Steering Committee, including
• Andersen
• Deutsche Bundesbank
• Dow Jones Company, Inc.
• Ernst Young
• Fujitsu
• General Electric Company
• IBM
• Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
• KPMG
• Microsoft Corporation
• PeopleSoft, Inc.
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Reuters Group LP
• SAP AG
• U.S. Census Bureau
• ...

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How does XBRL work ?

• Small bits of information tags are added to
  accounting terms to give them context
• Example
• 2000
• Year? Employees? Income? Miles?
• In XBRL
• ltyeargt2000lt/yeargt ltsectorgt2000lt/sectorgt
• Using tags, number crunching by computers is
  quick, efficient and accurate

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XBRL components

• XBRL Specification
• explains XBRL in technical terms
• XBRL Schema
• explains how taxonomies and instance documents
  are to be built
• XBRL metadata
• XBRL Taxonomy
• vocabulary or dictionary of XBRL
• XBRL Instance Document
• business report e.g. financial statement
• based on taxonomies, schemas and the XBRL
  specification

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XBRL Taxonomy Example
lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8"?gt ltschema
xmlnsxbrl"http//www.xbrl.org/core/metamodel"
xmlnshtml"http//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
targetNamespace"http//www.xbrl.org/us/us-gaap-ci
-2000-07-31.xsd"gt ... ltelement name"salesRevenueG
ross.revenueFromAffiliates" type"monetary"gt ltann
otationgt ltappinfogt ltxbrlrollup
to"salesRevenueNet.salesRevenueGross"
weight"1.0 order"3" /gt ltxbrllabel
xmllang"en"gtRevenue from Affiliateslt/xbrllabelgt
lt/appinfogt lt/annotationgt lt/elementgt ... lt/schemagt
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XBRL Instance Example
lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8"?gt ... ltgroup
typegrossProfit.salesRevenueNetgt ltitem
period"1999-05-31"gt8671lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1998-05-31"gt11358lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1997-05-31"gt14484lt/itemgt lt/groupgt ltgroup
typeoperatingProfit.operatingExpensesgt ltitem
period"1999-05-31"gt5612lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1998-05-31"gt6487lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1997-05-31"gt8070lt/itemgt lt/groupgt ltgroup
typegrossProfit.costOfGoodsAndServicesSoldgt lti
tem period"1999-05-31"gt1188lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1998-05-31"gt1085lt/itemgt ltitem
period"1997-05-31"gt1197lt/itemgt ... lt/groupgt
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XBRL Taxonomies

• Financial Reporting for Commercial and Industrial
  Companies
• Existing U.S. GAAP
• Under development German GAAP, Canadian GAAP,
  Australian GAAP,
• International Accounting Standards (IAS) (Draft)
• General Ledger Transactions (Draft)
• Financial Reporting for
• Financial Institutions
• Public Sector
• Not-for-Profit Entities

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Conclusions

• Transition from EDI to XML
• Two XML-based languages of interest
• ebXML e-business XML
• XBRL eXtensible Business Reporting Language
• XBRL is an XML-based electronic language for
  financial reporting
• Supported by major players
• Industry-wide
• World-wide
• Statistical data can efficiently be extracted
  from XBRL reports

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Information sources

• Websites
• http//www.xbrl.org/
• http//www.xml.org/
• http//www.w3.org/
• Books
• XBRL Essentials. Charles Hoffman and Carolyn
  Strand (2001)
• Introducing XBRL Making Decisions in a Digital
  Economy. Neal Hannon and Zachary Coffin (2002)