XBRL

1
XBRL the future

• Miklos A. Vasarhelyi

2
A view in perspective

• What is a markup language?
• The role of a markup language in the development
  of Internetworking
• Tim Berners-Lee and the Web
• Weaving the Web, Harper Collins, New York,
  1999.
• A Web server
• A Markup language
• A Browser
• On top of an existing infrastructure
• Public access, non-proprietary cooperation

3
Some Principles

• Little intelligence in the network
• Generic rules of good behavior
• A hierarchy of nodes and rules of the road for
  IP numbering and domain name determination
• A series of unexpected, some times dysfunctional
  consequences
• Domain name exploitation, traveling viruses,
  denial of access, over-commercialization of the
  medium,lack of accountability, questionable
  content, etc.

4
The cycle
5
The cycle

• Shannon Weaver
• measurement theory
• fine -gt coarse not
• coarse to fine

Other forms of XML
Economic events
6
Issues

• Encapsulation
• Standardization of accounts
• Accounts of same name in difference industries
• Volatility of transactions
• Advancing the international cycle
• Nature of the taxonomy and of the taxons
• Irreversibility of transaction classification

7
Issues

• Attestation at the account level
• The attestation can be a tag
• Audit methodology does not provide for account
  attestation per se
• Only analogy could be SAS 70 opinions (agreed
  upon procedures)
• Materiality threshold does not apply

8
Complexities from implementation

• Not empirically based (patches will be necessary)
• Babel tower of taxonomies
• 14 industries in the US
• Many countries (50)
• Each with its own industries
• No mapping requirement
• How to consolidate across countries?

9
Complexities (2)

• Implementation is not transitive with XML
  therefore XML tool may not work
• Versioning based on date has its own difficulties
• No relationship with transaction XML tagging
  schemata

10
Futurity

• Tagging of lower level elemental transactions
  (equivalent to journalizing)
• Linking tagging to continuous process monitoring
  
• heuristic filters,
• domain parameterization
• routing into pre-set categories (XBRL
  categories??)

11
Futurity

• Automation of accounting processes
• A wider set of measurement processes
• Continuous process monitoring
• Accountability at the transaction level
• Common channels and transaction
• One big step in the evolutionary process

12
A historical opportunity lost

• Babel of standards and industries will continue
  undiminished
• Social costs will be much larger than should
• Substantial noise will be inserted into the
  system due to the near impossibility of
  official mappings