XBRL
About XBRL
XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard mark-up language optimised for business information, including but not limited to financial and accounting information. It is a variant of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and adopts the same syntax and related technologies (XML Schema, XLink). XBRL is the optimisation of XML to represent business and financial data.
XML enables the tagging of data with identifying information, according to a classification system (or taxonomy). A taxonomy is essentially a collection of concepts, similar to a dictionary. XBRL tags associate the concepts in the taxonomy to a piece of data, in order to facilitate the interpretation of the data. The advantage XBRL has over XML is that the tagged data can be associated with any number of classification systems (e.g. tax based, IFRS based, US GAAP based, etc), not just one. XBRL aids data sharing more than XML does by removing the obstacle of human terminology from the equation – any number of human terms for the same data concept can be associated with it (e.g. sales, income, revenue, turnover).
Because XBRL tags are computer-readable, they allow the electronic transmission of data along with resources relating to each concept that help define their semantic meaning (i.e. the associated definitions and other metadata from the taxonomy). Electronic transmission of data with semantic meaning enables the automated processing of that information in context, reducing the time and resources that would otherwise be required to manually analyse and compare it (ref. Understanding XBRL, XBRL Nederland, 2008).
The capability of XBRL to communicate semantic meaning associated with specific data elements, independent of any software application or platform, makes it useful for the transmission of business and financial information to multiple company stakeholders and regulators. It enables the validation of information contained within business transmissions against the constraints defined in the taxonomy and facilitates the analysis and reuse of that business information for other purposes.
A not-for-profit entity, XBRL International, governs the development and use of XBRL, and has jurisdictions in 22 countries.
XBRL tools
XBRL processor software tools are now available in both Java and .NET platforms for software developers, with its use restricted for the purpose of enabling financial, accounting or payroll software for end users who will lodge SBR in-scope forms to participating agencies.
The XBRL processor software is being provided to assist software developers develop products that can create, validate, report, collect, and analyse financial data in XBRL. The software will be supported by a series of training sessions that will be arranged in the coming months.
The XBRL processor software will be made available, free of charge, to eligible and approved organisations during the period of the Commonwealth's agreement. Use of the software is optional, and the decision to use it or make alternative sourcing arrangement is at the discretion of software developers.
Please contact SBR to register for the tools, or for any other assistance implementing SBR.
