At ICAN, We provide comprehensive XBRL solutions for all your filing needs (10-Q, 10-K, 20-F, Risk Returns) in conformation with SEC guidelines. We have a wide range of XBRL services on offer:
- Block Tagging for Year 3 Clients.
- Detailed Notes tagging for Year 1 & 2 clients.
- Risk/Return documents for Mutual Funds.
- Ability to prepare XBRL for Foreign filers
- Tagging based on IFRS Taxonomy.
XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text, XBRL provides a computer-readable tag to identify each individual item of data. By attaching identifying tags to individual pieces of data, a business reporting document becomes “intelligent” data, allowing the exchange of business reporting data by encoding the information in a meaningful way.
Computer applications can use the XBRL data to recognize the information in an XBRL document - selecting, analyzing, storing, and exchanging it with other computers and present it in a variety of ways for users. As companies review their business reporting disclosure controls and procedures and begin to comply with new filing requirements, XBRL is becoming the chosen tool to help facilitate and restore confidence in business reporting and in turn, to communicate accurately the value of the company.
What XBRL Is
XBRL is a structured, but adaptable, computer language developed to solve a problem. The problem is that the data in reports delivered over the Internet in pre-XBRL computer languages, such as HTML, typically cannot be processed directly by the recipient’s application software. An HTML report is a unit, containing information that
cannot be automatically separated for computerized analysis or further processing. Instead, the reported data must be rekeyed in a form acceptable to the application software, or customized software must be used to perform the equivalent of rekeying. The full advantage of computerized delivery is thus aborted, because the transmitted text must be used the same way a paper report is used, by transforming the data into a format that the user’s computer application can understand.
XBRL solves this problem by “tagging” individual items of data in a way that another computer can understand and work with. “Tagging” is a metaphorical term for assigning coded identifiers to data. A fully tagged datum would be described in ways sufficient to retain its identity and be read correctly by a user’s application software.
In other words, the user’s application would be able to interact directly with the reported data. For this reason, the SEC chose the term “Interactive data” to refer to XBRL reports. A distinction helpful in understanding XBRL is between what goes on behind the computer screen and what is on the screen and usable by those who want only to work with the reported data. These users do not need to see the tagging from which they benefit. The tags are read by the computer, by programmers, and by other parties who need or want to see the tags. Users typically get what they need from readable printouts and the interfaces created by their software applications.
The most fundamental steps in developing an XBRL report are tagging data and applying a style sheet to the tagged data to convert XBRL files into a document that looks similar to the paper reports users of financial statements have been accustomed to. The tagging process is governed by the XBRL Specification, a detailed description of how to go about complying with the XBRL language. It explains how to create taxonomies and instance documents. Taxonomies are the tagging dictionaries, and instance documents are the files sent by a reporting entity to a recipient to deliver XBRL data. These steps are described more fully below:
What XBRL Is Not
Neither XML nor XBRL are replacements for HTML. They are complementary. HTML has a fixed, predefined number of tags. XML, in contrast, does not limit the number of tags. Instead, it provides a framework for defining tags (i.e., a taxonomy) and the relationships among them (i.e., a schema). XBRL is a form of XML focused on what is needed for business reporting. XBRL does not prescribe or limit what might be disclosed in a business report. It neither adds to the information that businesses must disclose, nor changes the content of GAAP financial statements. XBRL did not inaugurate data tagging. It has been employed for a long time because it is fundamental to the software that enables computers to perform their tasks. HTML pages also use tags. HTML and XML share the common term “markup,” which refers to assigning code to desired formatting or other characteristics of information. The inventiveness that XBRL may claim derives from its structure and its adaptability.
The Potential Benefits of XBRL
XBRL permits the automatic exchange and reliable extraction of financial information across all software formats and technologies, including the Internet. It enhances efficiency by allowing tagged financial information to be transmitted in many formats and deployed with various analytical tools. This efficiency is a potential source of reduced costs. XBRL also improves access to financial information and provides the potential for more accurate and reliable extraction of information.
XBRL can benefit preparers, users, and regulatory agencies. Depending on the extent of the use of XBRL, preparers could benefit from lowered costs to produce information, more timely, accurate analysis of data needed to make decisions, and enhanced analytical capabilities. Users could benefit from reduced costs to obtain needed financial information, facilitated analytical processes, and more accurate analysis. Users of transnational data, can benefit from the relative ease with which the data can be translated, for example, by changing a data label from English to German or Japanese, and from easier access to definitions that enhance comparability, for example, by reading the description within the tag. Regulators can benefit from simplified programming, facilitated validation, greater flexibility in getting changes made to submissions, and more timely, accurate, and consistent data for analysis and research.
How XBRL Works:
Simply put, traditional financial statement data is tagged using a taxonomy to create an instance document. XBRL’s delivery unit is the instance document. The instance document is transmitted by the party who prepares the information to the party who can use it. Understanding how XBRL works must therefore include some acquaintance with the necessary inputs to instance documents, the way in which instance documents are prepared for delivery, and some of the terminology XBRL’s developers have created.