Greg Carter Explains the Broader Possibilities of XBRL

Lorraine Lawson, of IT Business Edge, interviewed EDGAROnline CEO Greg Carter this week, pulling a wealth of information from him on the possible future of XBRL. Carter believes that the language holds the key to more successful business to business (B2B) companies.

You could really say that it would be used from one organization’s ERP or consolidated financial system and uploaded directly to a regulatory agency. It wouldn’t necessarily (be used), at this point, though it’s perfectly applicable to B2B transactions between businesses, but that’s exactly where it’s headed.

It’s a standardized way of communicating a transaction, whether that transaction is the close of a quarter, the close of the year or the shipment of a cargo container. That’s actually an example of an industry that is actively looking at XBRL: the shipping and logistics industry.

Much like recent efforts to promote XBRL on the National level, the language can also bring efficiency to a smaller scale. XBRL data is similar to today’s popular QR codes. It contains a large amount of data, in a small, easily-read package. Businesses using XBRL reporting could keep a better eye on their transactions, according to Carter.

But that isn’t the only industry looking at this technology.

Lawson: What’s it competing with in terms of standards in the B2B space?

Carter: There are a variety of older standards, such as HL 7 in the health care industry, that are kind of pre-XML standards.

 The beauty of XBRL is that it comes with a bigger framework. So, previously, organizations agreed, and HL 7 is an example. They came up with a static standard that described a relatively thick set of data points and there were tools that were kind of hardcoded to understand HL 7.

The way XBRL is used is a given set of trading partners or interested parties that come together. They agree upon a core taxonomy that represents maybe the minimum information required, or the maximum information required or different levels of information. Not only can they define the information structure, the taxonomy, they can also capture a lot of business rules that allow that information to be very dynamically validated and to be accurately represented…

The interview is a long, but fascinating look at the future of XBRL. If you have the time, I strongly suggest reading it, but the basic message Carter presents is that we have barely tapped the limits of XBRL. There are few businesses, and even fewer industries, that cannot take some benefit from the XBRL reporting language. Where do you see the future of XBRL?

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Merrill Corporation is proud to offer XBRL Complete, a suite of services that meets - and has options to exceed – the mandated requirements for XBRL for mutual funds. For more information, please click here or call 866-367-9110.

This Week in XBRL: New Taxonomy Released, and XBRL Still Promoted to Federal Agencies

New Corporate Actions Taxonomy

Earlier this week, XBRL US announced the public release of the 2012 Corporate Actions of Taxonomy. This taxonomy has been updated to meet the ISO 20022 standard for Corporate Actions Anouncements.

"This latest release of the taxonomy reflects our experience in pilot testing as well as aligning to the ISO 20022 standard in support of the DTCC reengineering program," said Max Mansur, Program Manager, Securities Markets, SWIFT. "We encourage the financial services community, including brokers, custodians, investment managers and public companies, as well as XBRL specialists, to review the new release and submit comments."

XBRL US is encouraging XBRL users to examine and review the taxonomy, so that they can address any concerns the new taxonomy has raised.

Will XBRL See Use in Washington?

Back in Mid-April, Campbell Pryde, President and CEO of XBRL US, testified before the Human Resources Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee on the benefits and waste reductions of XBRL reporting. This is but one of a long string of public and private endorsements of the XBRL language for use in Federal financial reporting. PRNewswire presented some of Campbell’s encouraging words.

"We applaud Chairman Davis and others in Congress who are working to make government more effective through the use of technology. Data standards will reduce cost, increase speed, and increase transparency and the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars," said Mr. Pryde.

With so many figures in the financial world promoting the use of XBRL, it is a wonder that it hasn’t yet been adopted. In the comments below, tell us your opinions on the topic. Do you think Federal adoption of XBRL is inevitable? If so, what’s holding it back?

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Merrill Corporation is proud to offer XBRL Complete, a suite of services that meets - and has options to exceed – the mandated requirements for XBRL for mutual funds. For more information, please click here or call 866-367-9110.

This Week in XBRL: The DATA Act Heads to the Senate

The DATA Act first made headlines in June of 2011 and has stayed at the top of the financial industry’s watch list ever since. The Act is still waiting for Senate approval, but XBRL supporters are already campaigning to get the reporting language adopted by the federal government.

“The bill doesn’t mandate XBRL as the medium for gathering and reporting data,” say Hitachi Data Interactive , “but it instructs the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Commission, to be formed by the bill, to incorporate existing nonproprietary standards such as XBRL if it’s practical to do so.”

The DATA Act was quickly approved by the House of Representatives, largely due to a high-profile scandal in which millions of dollars was wasted on an over-the-top Las Vegas conference. The public outcry for federal financial transparency has only increased since 2011, and few doubt the success of the DATA Act bill.

But why is XBRL a good choice for these federal financial reports? Hitachi Data Interactive has more:

[Campbell Pryde, of the XBRL US Consortium] also assured the House knows how free and open XBRL is, and that it was developed specifically to provide the kind of reporting of financial and performance-related information that the DATA Act seeks to establish. “The ability of XBRL to enable greater standardization means that government agencies and the entities reporting to them can leverage the same software and infrastructure from agency to agency, and even more importantly, they can avail themselves of the tools already available on the market today,” he wrote to the House to support the measure. “XBRL is a low-cost solution that needs no further development and can leverage existing market tools, infrastructure and expertise.

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Merrill Corporation is proud to offer XBRL Complete, a suite of services that meets - and has options to exceed – the mandated requirements for XBRL for mutual funds. For more information, please click here or call 866-367-9110.

XBRL 2.1 Specification Change

This article was originally posted on the XBRL Cloud blog.

In a somewhat surprising move, XBRL International has recently promoted an XBRL 2.1 errata to RECOMMENDATION status that just-barely changes the behavior of XBRL (see the April XII Instances). The change is related to the way XBRL performs calculations (and thereby determines "inconsistencies").

Generally, errata aren't even worth mentioning outside the sphere of the XBRL geeks. Errata are most often used to clarify the specification--especially if vendors have different interpretations.

XBRL International has admirably gone to great lengths to keep XBRL 2.1 stable to make adoption possible. Therefore, errata have not heretofore been used to change specifications. To be completely fair, the proposed change is more likely to execute calculations as a "normal" person (read accountant) might expect.

The downside of this change is that nobody in the technical community is 100% sure what the side effects might be for, say, HMRC or SEC filings. The general consensus (but not scientifically proven) is that there will be no practical effects of these changes.

Nonetheless, this note is just a heads up in case you find that a document that previously validated does not, or that your new document is unexpectedly generating inconsistencies.