XBRL can be used for numerous business reporting applications including public company financial statements, regulatory reporting, even tracking and valuing of mortgage-backed securities.

Below is the library of case studies, white papers and other research conducted by XBRL US with support from member and non-member organizations.

2024

  • California: Digital First Climate Data posted February 28

    To meet the goals of climate initiatives worldwide requires governments to understand the impact of industry on the environment. This can only be accomplished standardized, digital data that is concretely understood, timely, and consistently prepared to foster a shared understanding of the current state of climate risk and to monitor changes going forward.

2023

  • Data Standards and the Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA) posted May 15

    Implementing the right data standard, as called for in the FDTA, will enable economies of scale, reduce the cost of reporting, data collection and analysis, and generate good quality, actionable data for policy-setters, regulators, and the public, including investors, and researchers.

2022

  • Supporting ESG Data with Standards posted April 1

    Executive Summary Data used for investment decisions, policy-setting and risk assessment should be made available in non-proprietary machine-readable formats. Current best practices for disclosures as machine-readable data have improved quality, reduced the cost of processing, and improved timeliness and usability of reported data. Prepared by: XBRL US ESG Working Group chaired by: Anna Kwok, Vice [...more]

2021

  • Custom Data Collection with Standardized Data: Liberty Mutual Surety Case Study posted December 2

    Liberty Mutual Surety, a global business with bond capabilities in more than 60 countries, relies on access to timely and accurate financial statement data on public and private companies, mostly to analyze corporate financial health for bonding and to conduct benchmarking and trend analysis.  The financial data is also used by the claims department when [...more]
  • Grants Reporting Case Study: College of DuPage posted August 31

    Executive Summary Reporting, collecting, and analyzing data about individual grants, and the grantees themselves, is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly. Grantees prepare multiple forms, and duplicate data reported. Federal awarding agencies and other users of grantee information manually extract data from inconsistently prepared PDF forms or text files. The GREAT (Grants Reporting Efficiency and Transparency) Act [...more]

2020

  • CFA Institute Publishes Blockchain and XBRL: The Myth posted October 19

    The CFA Institute published a blog debunking myths around blockchain and XBRL, noting: “The myth that blockchain could replace XBRL in the production of financial information is incorrect. Blockchain is not a data standard. And XBRL is not a distributed ledger system. Replacing one with the other would be like replacing the English language with [...more]

2017

  • Let the data tell the story .. how little companies got big posted May 24

    XBRL data gives small businesses the tools to conduct critical analysis needed to make “go/no go” decisions on major life cycle changes. Should a company go public? Merge with another company? Be acquired? Understanding the path taken by other small businesses can help them determine the best course for themselves.  With tools like XBRL data [...more]
  • Automating Work-in-Process (WIP), Improving Contractor Access to Credit posted April 27

    Marcum LLP successfully created a computer-readable WIP report to help contractor clients provide financial performance data to surety carriers that can be automatically extracted with no rekeying of data. Marcum created the report by performing a one-time mapping using a spreadsheet add-in that converted the WIP data into XBRL format. XBRL is an open data [...more]
  • Automation Improves Underwriting Process for Contractors and Sureties posted April 26

    The Hartford demonstrates how a one-time investment in data standards can be used by brokers to streamline their own data processing; and by surety carriers to eliminate the need for manual data entry, improve the credit evaluation process and offer better service to contractor customers.

2016

  • Global Data Provider Reduces Data Processing Time 90% posted December 21

    Morningstar, an investment research and investment management firm headquartered in Chicago, provides data on approximately 525,000 investment offerings, and began collecting data in XBRL format in 2012, starting with data from Taiwan and Japan. In 2016 they began working with US-based corporate data in XBRL format and will be making this available to clients in [...more]
  • Research Analyst Saves 72 Hours off Data Collection posted December 20

    Corporate earnings are of keen interest to investors as a critical measure of value. But “unremitted (untaxed) foreign earnings”, which have significant implications for corporate earnings, may be off the radar screen of many investors simply because of its placement in company filings, embedded in the notes to the financials. The cumulative balance of untaxed [...more]
  • Student-run Investment Fund Gains Access to Affordable, Timely Corporate Financials posted December 19

    Corporate financials are now affordable, educating tomorrow’s investors. Professor Mike Phillips at California State University – Northridge, helped his students establish a student-run investment fund that today manages $3.5 million. The fund contains three portfolios – 1) an ETF (exchange traded fund); 2) a traditional common stock portfolio with an emphasis on growth and quality; [...more]
  • Audit Firm Produces More Robust Analysis, Reduces Data Collection Time posted December 17

    BDO USA, LLP, the US member firm of BDO International, a global accounting network, was asked to evaluate the fair value of the intangible assets acquired as part of a business combination. A primary factor in this type of evaluation is determining the reasonableness of the underlying projections used to support the intangible asset values. [...more]
  • Reduce Business Burden, Cut Govt Spending – Adopt XBRL posted December 12

    This paper provides the XBRL US position on the use of financial data standards and recommends adopting the freely available, open XBRL data standard for all financial data reporting required by U.S. regulators. Only the XBRL standard has 1) the appropriate format to render data computer-readable; 2) the appropriate information component to clearly and consistently [...more]
  • CFA Institute Study – Data and Technology: Transforming the Financial Information Landscape posted June 29

    The CFA Institute published a study supporting structured data, naming the following benefits to investors: Improves financial statement accuracy Improves productivity Increases opportunity for higher returns Allows for better risk management Empowers the analyst The study goes on to note that other areas of corporate disclosures that are not currently tagged would be helpful to [...more]
  • White Paper: Data Standards to Improve Surety Underwriting posted May 2

    The XBRL US Surety Working Group has published a business case Data Standards in Surety Underwriting, which outlines alternatives to bring standards into the surety underwriting process and recommends the use of XBRL to improve efficiency and timeliness. The following issues with today’s surety underwriting process can be improved through standards: High costs. Entering data by hand into [...more]

2015

  • Analysis of Fact Values Reported by Public Companies – How to Improve Effectiveness of Disclosure posted November 30

    Every year, public companies report a single 10-K and three 10-Qs; each of these reports contain facts that are duplicates of facts reported in previous filings. XBRL US analyzed filings for 498 companies[1] representing the market to identify how public company disclosures can be made more effective. Key findings from the research: Significant amounts of [...more]
  • Open Data Standards to Improve Financial Reporting posted September 2

    Open data standards improve the corporate financial reporting process, making financial data from public companies easier to extract, more timely and more granular. Read this 2-page flyer on how data processing has been transformed with the use of XBRL for financial statement data.

2011

2010

  • Case for Corporate Actions Automation posted December 31

    Read the results of a business case advocating a transformation in the way corporate actions announcements are communicated in the United States, allowing investors to receive information on such corporate actions as mergers, dividends, stock splits and other events in a more timely, accurate and less costly way, directly as specified by the issuer or [...more]

2009

2006


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