XBRL And Its Global Implications

In class last week we discussed the various reports that need to be submitted by companies in order for the public to have a greater understanding of their business processes. Reports come yearly, quaterly or immediately when something dramatic happens within the business that needs to be relayed to the public. With finanical reporting being an important feature in business, there has recently been a creation of Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL as an interactive way for businesses to report their financial statements.

The advent of technology and the different influences it has had provoked me to study XBRL for my blog post this week. Greg Zegarowski wrote an article about the uses of XBRL and how it has begun to be used in many ways globally. XBRL has become quickly important since it is able to improve timeliness, accuracy and accesbility of the yearly, quaterly and immediately released reports. These improvements have been made tagging financial information into formats that can be read easily by a machine. This technological advancement can thoroughly streamline reporting into one standard format, assist when moving data to a different system, along with incorporating data to different countries and languages.

XBRL started about 12 years ago in the United States has quickly been adopted by countries around the world who also seek to utilize the easy and effiecnty of tagging information in their financial reports. Global uses of XBRL include China, Singapore, South Korea, Isreal and Japan requiring public disclousres to be submitting though this internet system. Netherland companies now use data tagging to finanical information to dutch authorities. Australian companies has begun to use XBRL in order to save around $1 dollars that would be spent on fninancial reporting without this technological advance. These countries have begun to improvement since serious imporvements to financial reporting can be made with the increased used of technology.

With XBRL reporting will become standarized throughout the world. In class we discussed how people will be able to easily compare financial statistics. This use of the interactive reporting globally will make it easier for companies to understand each other. While XBRL makes things easier for public, financial reporters and auditors, all of this information being located in one place and format can be dangerous to the job positions of Investor Relations professionals. It was interesting to note how XBRL is used throughout the world, yet it will be even more interesting to see the further advancements to reporting since XBRL has already been such a successful technological improvement to this business process.