On February 10, 2009, SEC issued the final rule mandating that the 500 largest public companies start to file their financial results using XBRL. The effective date of the new rule is April 13, 2009, which means that most of the largest public issuers are required to file their quarterly results using XBRL for fiscal period ending on or after June 15. By 2010, all accelerated filers must comply with the new rule and by 2011 all public companies will have to file using XBRL.
February 16th, 2009
Under XBRL every financial data has its identifying tag, which is computer readable. SO instead of having data as text, it is stored as a tag. Computer can read it, store it, analyze it, and present it in different forms. It will make not just intra company analysis easy, but facilitate inter company analysis. This is how: if the tag for Net Income is same for all companies, as is the case in XBRL, then the computer can generate a report analyzing the Net Income tag for one company against its competitors, other companies in different industries, suppliers, buyers, etc…It can compare data of not just national players but also international players.
The tags provide a range of information about the item, such as whether it is a monetary item, percentage or fraction. XBRL allows labels in any language to be applied to items, as well as accounting references or other subsidiary information.
XBRL can show how items are related to one another. It can thus represent how they are calculated. It can also identify whether they fall into particular groupings for organizational or presentational purposes. XBRL is easily extensible, so companies and other organizations can adapt it to meet a variety of special requirements.
January 28th, 2007
An international non-profit consortium of approximately 450 major companies, organizations, and government agencies is working on XBRL. It is an open standard, free of license fees.
January 28th, 2007