XBRL US announced key findings from its first-ever XBRL US Pacific Rim Technology Workshop last week, hosted by Hitachi America Ltd., at their headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Two major themes were identified throughout the workshop: 1) significant opportunities lie ahead for XBRL in non-compliance related areas such as corporate actions, social networking and social impact investing, and 2) the importance of continuing the dialogue surrounding the underlying technology and architecture to ensure global standardization and interoperability.
The workshop was designed to bring together XML and XBRL experts from Pacific Rim countries to share ideas and brainstorm about advanced development topics including rendering, maintenance, versioning, business intelligence and data quality. Case studies from Pacific Rim countries were presented to highlight how XBRL is being put to practical use.
A discussion paper is being developed that will provide important findings from the 2 ½ day workshop and will be available on the XBRL US webiste at www.xbrl.us within the next few weeks. Highlights from the workshop that will be included in the discussion paper include:
- XBRL US, XBRL Japan and the IASB are working together to bring convergence to public company reporting taxonomies for Japan’s EDINET, US GAAP and IFRS, through an ongoing evaluation of architecture, content, and the development and maintenance approach
- Many companies in the US have begun filing per the mandate by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with fewer extensions and better data quality than expected
- Maintaining taxonomies requires constant review, evaluation and change by all users to ensure high-quality, consistent data; the maintenance process in Japan and the US were compared and contrasted
- XBRL could give companies the tool to create trusted content for use in social networks serving investors and analysts. Ensuring that XBRL content is discoverable, shareable, easily rendered and connected to the source document will drive the consistent and accurate re-use of financial information across the web
- Corporate actions was cited as the next major initiative for XBRL in the US marketplace, driven by SWIFT, DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation) and XBRL US; a draft taxonomy has been developed which will soon be posted to www.xbrl.us for member review
- XBRL was cited as an important gauge to measure social investing returns needed by all types of investors, ranging from philanthropic, who need to understand the social impact of programs in which they invest, to market investors that are looking for financial return
- XBRL US is building tools for preparers, software companies and users of data including a database of US GAAP extensions from filings submitted, a tool to let users check that their XBRL-formatted documents are consistent with the US GAAP Taxonomy and a change management tool to evaluate taxonomy version changes
A group of senior-level interns who have been working with XBRL US over the Summer presented the results of project assignments including the building of an extension database, review of adherence to the EDGAR Filer Manual, corporate actions and use of the XBRL formula linkbase.
Other discussions centered on topics in XBRL development including versioning, data consistency, database and business intelligence, tagging and rendering to outline the challenges, possible approaches and potential solutions.
Expert speakers at the conference represented CoreFiling, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Ernst & Young Global, Fujitsu Research Institute, Goffengel Consulting, Hitachi America, Ltd., IASC Foundation, Informatica, ISO, JustSystems, Morningstar, Oracle Corporation, Q4 Web Systems, Inc., Rivet Software, Salesforce.com Foundation, SimpleX Data Technologies, SWIFT, UBmatrix, and XBRL US. For more information about the Workshop, including presentations, detailed agenda and speaker bios, visit the XBRL US Technology Workshop & Summit page.
About XBRL
XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is a royalty-free, open specification for software that uses XML data tags to describe business and financial information for public and private companies and other organizations. XBRL benefits all members of the information supply chain by utilizing a standards-based method with which users can prepare, publish in a variety of formats, exchange and analyze business and financial statements and the information they contain.
About XBRL US
XBRL US is the non-profit consortium for XML business reporting standards in the United States and is a jurisdiction of XBRL International. It represents the business information supply chain, including accounting firms, software companies, financial databases, financial printers and government agencies. Its mission is to support the implementation of XML business reporting standards through the development of taxonomies relevant for use by US public and private sectors, working with a goal of interoperability between sectors, and by promoting adoption of these taxonomies through the collaboration of all business reporting supply chain participants. XBRL US has developed taxonomies to support U.S. GAAP and common reporting practices, the Risk Return Summary in mutual fund prospectuses and the Schedule of Investments under contract with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The XBRL US GAAP Taxonomies are available for review at http://xbrl.us/taxonomies/Pages/US-GAAP2009.aspx.
Link: www.xbrl.us
CONTACT: Michelle Savage, Vice President, Communication, XBRL US, Inc., michelle.savage@xbrl.us, +1-917-747-1714
