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XBRL Reporting: Trends and Mandates

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard for electronic communication of business and financial data that allows items in financial statements to be tagged with unique identifiers. This provides structure and relationships between data elements. The U.S. SEC mandated XBRL reporting in 2009, and other countries like the UK and UAE have also begun requiring or recommending its use. As more countries adopt XBRL over time, the demand for professionals with XBRL certification will increase to help companies implement reporting in this new standard.

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Cris R. Hatter
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186 views2 pages

XBRL Reporting: Trends and Mandates

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard for electronic communication of business and financial data that allows items in financial statements to be tagged with unique identifiers. This provides structure and relationships between data elements. The U.S. SEC mandated XBRL reporting in 2009, and other countries like the UK and UAE have also begun requiring or recommending its use. As more countries adopt XBRL over time, the demand for professionals with XBRL certification will increase to help companies implement reporting in this new standard.

Uploaded by

Cris R. Hatter
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Technology: XBRL XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) reporting is changing the financial reporting process to another level.

XBRL is an open standard for the electronic communication of business and financial data. XBRL is essentially a dictionary of tags that can be applied to each element in a financial statement. This tells standard software what the item represents and how it relates to other items in the report, much like giving all the facts in the report a unique barcode. You could find several definitions to XBRL over the internet but it can be simplified as follows:

XBRL is: 1 An open technology standard for reporting and analyzing business and financial information Software agnostic, or independent Accounting framework neutral XBRL is not: 1 A standardized chart of accounts A way to require the reporting of specific information A transaction level activity (although it can summarize general ledger transactions)

During 2011 the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission 2009 XBRL Reporting Mandate became effective. This means that more than 8,000 U.S. publicly traded companies are now required to file their financial statements in XBRL format. 2 On April 1, 2012, the U.K. marked the first anniversary of the HMRCs (Her Majestys Revenue and Customs) Inline-XBRL (iXBRL) tax reporting mandate and planned to require all limited companies to use iXBRL for registration and reporting in 2013. 2 In the Middle East, the UAE is leading the way for XBRL reporting. In October 2011, the UAEs Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) signed an agreement with the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM) to implement an XBRL financial reporting system for all of its publicly listed companies. The project successfully completed the pilot phase in 2011, and it becomes mandatory in 2013. 2 For the past two years, Australia has benefitted from the voluntary XBRL SBR system that aims to streamline business-to-government reporting. They chose SBR to reduce the burden on companies and to remove redundant and necessary information from government reporting forms. 2 For those who consider working with a more challenging environment in those listed companies in these countries, and since that there will be more nations to adopt the XBRL reporting in the next few years, job demand for those with XBRL certification will rise. XBRL certification will be one of the qualification to be considered by any hiring
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Ernst & Young Global Website IMA magazine Strategic Finance May 2012 by Kristine Brands, CMA, CPA

personnel or headhunters. Since it is already being implemented in the United Arab Emirates (particularly Abu Dhabi & Dubai) it will not take long for other neighboring countries to follow. With the rapidly evolving technology, the timing of XBRL reporting is uncanny. The financial scandals of the previous years which involve large scales corporate fraud that spur a global financial crisis, XBRL will help streamline the financial reporting process, real-time verification of data with the external auditors and other users of financial statements, more transparency in the financial information, and could save the business some costs. There will be issues and challenges in adopting XBRL reporting but any company has to keep up with the change and technology advancement to survive the ever changing global environment.

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Ernst & Young Global Website IMA magazine Strategic Finance May 2012 by Kristine Brands, CMA, CPA

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