The Internet Encyclopedia (Volume 3)

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870 XBRL (EXTENSIBLEBUSINESSREPORTINGLANGUAGE): BUSINESSREPORTING WITHXML

XBRL taxonomy elements. A number of new software

packages can do this automatically. The created XBRL

document is automatically checked to ensure it is proper

XBRL. There are several XBRL document validation

programs. One is available from XBRL Solutions Inc., at

http://www.xbrlsolutions.com. Then, the validated XBRL

document is placed on the company’s Web site or FTP

server.

When users need the information contained in the

XBRL document for their analysis, they obtain it on the

Internet. Users use the XBRL document for their analy-

sis. If they want to translate the document into HTML, a

spreadsheet, or database, they can do so with appropri-

ate style sheets developed by them or by outside software

developers. Of course, an XBRL document would not nec-

essarily be viewed by a person in its raw form. XML-

enabled software could automatically parse and trans-

form the content of the XBRL document and then transfer

it to another system for further processing.

XBRL Taxonomy and XBRL

Instance Document

A XBRL document is created by mapping financial

information to an XBRL taxonomy that describes

financial “facts” and the relationships between them. A

taxonomy is a dictionary of the financial terms used

in preparing financial statements or other business re-

ports and the corresponding XBRL tags. A XBRL tax-

onomy can be regarded as an extension of an XML

schema that defines elements corresponding to concepts

that can be referenced in XBRL documents; for ex-

ample, the element with the name “nonCurrentAssets.

propertyPlantAndEquipmentNet” represents such a con-

cept. A XBRL document has a hierarchical structure that

is defined by the taxonomy. Figure 7 contains a graphi-

cal illustration of the hierarchical structure of an XBRL

document and a taxonomy as seen through a “taxonomy

viewer.”

A XBRL instance document is an XML document

containing XBRL elements. In other words, a company’s

financial statements, created by using XBRL, are an in-

stance document in which various XBRL elements are

embedded based on a specific taxonomy. A common tax-

onomy enables users to compare several firms’ finan-

cial statements (assuming they use the same accounting

guidelines). Because the same tags are used by all “pub-

lishers” of XBRL documents, who rely on the same tax-

onomy, all users of those documents will recognize the

tagged data the same way. For example, the tag <group

Figure 7: XBRL taxonomy as seen through a taxonomy viewer.