XBRL, for dummies?

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: FINANCIAL REPORTING

XBRL--the acronym for extensible Business Reporting Language, that has been mandated for public companies for filing financial statements beginning Dec. 15.--is certainly not for dummies. However, Hitachi XBRL experts Peter Weverka and Wilson So, Ph.D., have cleverly designed an 84-page book, to help businesspeople better understand XBRL and its benefits.

To better understand its utility, they offer the following 11 reasons;

1: It's the Napster of Investing. XBRL will make it just as easy for anyone to download information about public companies in a form they can immediately use.

2: It's Interactive Data. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox is quite fond of all things that users can make the numbers in a financial statement do with XBRL codes.

3: It's the Democratization of Information. XBRL puts business information in the hands of individual investors. Now anyone can have instant access to accurate information and comparative analysis that previously only sophisticated research specialists could access.

4: It's an Information Medium. XBRL is a medium of information exchange.

5: It's the Universal Language of Business Information. There are many reporting languages, but XBRL speaks the same language to everyone.

6: It's Standardized Business Information. Today, users have to unload and reload financial information from different sets of financial statements, accounting systems and computer systems. XBRL makes all that unnecessary.

7: It's Mistake-Proof Information. XBRL is mistake proof...