10 Things Young CPAs Need to Know about XBRL

10 Things a Young
CPA Should know
about XBRL

Conor O‟Kelly BComm, FCA, M.Sc

Vice Chair, XBRL International
Dublin, Ireland April 2011

XBRL for Young CPAs April 2011

10 Things a CPA Should Know About XBRL

1. What is XBRL?
2. What are the benefits of XBRL?
3. Adoption Drivers
4. XBRL and IFRS
5. The Evolution of the Web and Its Impact on Business Reporting
6. Interactive Data and the Annual Report
7. Financial Reporting and Mobile Computing
8. Human Readable Interactive Data
9. Key Readiness Challenges
10.How do I join the conversation?


 XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of
business and financial data. It provides benefits in the
preparation, analysis and communication of business
information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and
improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in
supplying or using financial data.

 XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is
one of a family of "XML" languages which is becoming a
standard means of communicating information between
businesses and on the internet.

 XBRL is being developed by an international non-profit
consortium of approximately 600 major companies,
organisations and government agencies. It is an open
standard, free of licence fees. It is already being put to
practical use in a number of countries and implementations
of XBRL are growing rapidly around the world.


1. What does it mean for me?

4 XBRL for Young CPAs April 2011

For business…
 Reduction in the administrative burden (i.e. cost) of providing data to Government
 Streamlined process of passing/aggregating data across different internal departments,
offices or business units of a company.
 Increased interoperability of finance applications:
 Connect disparate accounting packages together more easily (especially across different
accounting areas)
 Increase the ability to switch software providers in the future
 Increased ability to change providers of filing services (where used) driving increased
competition for business and lower charges.
 Better interaction with the banks for loan applications and risk systems:
 Bank loan businesses money and request financial information at the inception of the
loan and throughout the loan cycle
 Improved data quality (less errors due to less manual intervention).
 Avoidance of fines for non-compliance with a mandatory request to provide data.

Source: OECD Forum on Tax Administration: Taxpayer Services SubGroup Guidance note Standard Business Reporting July 2009
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/36/52/43384923.pdf

• Cut costs of tax preparation, tax calcs, tax effect accounting by 25 -
33%
• Better analysis of client information
• Less time spent on „data drudgery‟
• Reduce Costs, Speed Cycle Times and Improve Accuracy
• Improved staff engagement and satisfaction
• Applying a taxonomy based approach drives new services such as:
• Web based benchmarking and Business Intelligence
• Online Accounting and STP for Compliance
Peter William, CEO Deloitte Digital

XBRL-enabled workflow in tax department

Accounting practices that make their money from cut & paste of data
should be warned that the writing is on the wall. Their days are
numbered ...” Mark Tobin, Taxation Partner, Deloitte Melbourne Australia.


 Economics
◦ EU Action Programme to reduce admin burden by 25%
◦ Compliance efficiencies / effectiveness – SBR programs
 converge towards global standards through the IMF, FSF, the
Basel committee and G20 processes.
 IFRS Adoption and GAAP convergence
 Capital Market Transparency – US SEC Mandate, European
Commission, China CSRC
 Alignment in Regulatory Consistency
 Integration with other standards- ISO, W3C, Swift, OECD


The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides regular
cooperation on banking supervisory matters designed to ensure that a
bank holds capital reserves appropriate to the risk the bank exposes
itself to through its lending and investment practices. Ensuring capital
allocation is more risk sensitive; Separating operational risk from
credit risk, and quantifying both; align economic and regulatory
capital more closely to reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage.

•XBRL Adopted by US FDIC for US Banking Quarterly Call Reports

•Feb09- Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS)
published work plan outlining priority activities to establish the
framework for harmonised supervisory reporting by 2012, in
conjunction with CEIOPS. Priority activities includes developments to
both the COREP (COMmon REPorting) and FINREP (FINancial REPorting)
taxonomies.

•Oct2008 Reserve Bank of India launch XBRL Basel II reporting for
Indian Banking Sector .

•Emerging Basel II XBRL projects in South America, Chile, Brazil,
Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Asia


Oct2008- EU President Barroso appointed High
Level Group on Financial Supervision in EU
aiming to promote e-gov and identify best practices in IT use in order to
enable the EU to contribute to international and multi-national initiatives.
The group are encouraging the Commission (and Member States) to
consider a „pull model – once only‟;

European Parliament (EP) resolution of 21 May 2008 – a call for the EC to
encourage Member States to harmonise the classification of financial
information and promote the use of new technology, such as XBRL;
Council meeting of 7 November 2008 – aiming to promote common
standards between financial centres, more transparency and
comprehensive information systems, and reformed multilateral
surveillance.

26 January 2009 - EC announced plans to revise the operational framework
and decision-making processes of the Committee of European Securities
Regulators (CESR), Banking Supervisors (CEBS) and Insurance &
Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS ). Seeking to safeguard
financial stability by improving supervisory co-operation, the decision also
proposes provide direct funding to those committees and to key
international financial reporting and auditing standard-setting bodies,
namely the IASC Foundation, the European Financial Reporting Advisory
Group (EFRAG) and the Public Interest Oversight Body (PIOB). The proposal
is now in the co-decision procedure for approval by the EP and the Council.

XBRL Europe endorses the position of FEE regarding the setting up of
“harmonised rules” and specifically the “fundamental review of the Basel 2
rules” and the extended use of the IFRS (comment N°25)
High Level Group on Financial Supervision in EU – De Larosiere Report (Feb 2009) XBRL for Young CPAs April 2011
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/finances/docs/de_larosiere_report_en.pdf

Requires submission of XBRL-formatted financial statements and
financial statement schedules via an „XBRL Exhibit‟ for annual, quarterly
filings and registration statements (and via posting XBRL Exhibit on
corporate website)
„Disclosure neutral‟

Phase-in, however early adoption is permitted:

Domestic and foreign large accelerated fliers using US GAAP with a
worldwide public float of greater than $5 billion (at Q2 of most recent
completed fiscal year) - beginning with a periodic report on Form 10-
Q, Form 20-F or Form 40-F containing financial statements for a fiscal
periods ending on or after June 15, 2009.

Remaining large accelerated filers using US GAAP – beginning with a
periodic report on Form 10-Q, Form 20-F or Form 40-F containing
financial statements for a fiscal period ending on or after June 15,
2010.

All remaining smaller domestic filers as well as foreign private issuers
using IFRS – beginning with a periodic report on Form 10-Q, Form 20-
F or Form 40-F containing financial statements for a fiscal period
ending on or after June 15, 2011.

http://WhiteHouse.gov
http://USA.gov
http://Recovery.gov


Multi-agency program to reduce the reporting burden by 25% or
more by:

•removing unnecessary/duplicated information from govt forms
•adopting a common reporting language, based on international
standards and best practice providing business with a single
secure online sign-on to the agencies involved
•utilising business software to automatically pre-fill government
forms
•providing an electronic interface to enable business to report to
government agencies directly from their accounting software,
which will provide validation and confirm receipt of reports
-making financial reporting to government a by-product of
natural business processes.

Emerging as a governmental compliance best practice in:
- Govt of Netherlands SBR Project
- State Controllers Office, State of Nevada
- Danish Commerce and Companies Agency (DCCA),
- Govt of New Zealand SBR
- Govt of Australia – Dept Treasury
- Singapore SBR
- Government of Ireland eGov policy
- Government of Poland
- United Kingdom HMRC/Companies Hse joint filing
- Ministry of Corporate Affairs India
- European Commission driving SBR “joint filings” projects in EU
countries- Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, UK, Estonia, Lux, Poland,
Italy


NO
SE
FI
NL DE
CZ
DK
IASB LU PL RU
HU
CA SI
UK

IE
BE
RO MD
US ES IT
BM CN
FR
MX
CY LB JP
KR
CH
AE IN
MT
Established XBRL HK
Jurisdictions
CO SG MY
Provisional XBRL
Jurisdictions BR

XBRL Projects
Ongoing
AU
CL ZA

NZ
AR

Countries that require or permit IFRSs

Countries seeking convergence with the IASB on pursuing adoption of IFRSs


Sept2009: published for public comment an exposure draft of
the IFRS for SMEs Taxonomy. The Taxonomy is a complete
translation of the International Financial Reporting Standard
for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) into XBRL
(eXtensible Business Reporting Language).

Sept2009: Release of IFRS Taxonomy 2009 labels in Dutch

Aug2009: Release of IFRS Taxonomy 2009 labels in Italian

July 2009: Release of IFRS Taxonomy 2009 labels in French
Jan2009 the IASC Foundation released the near final version
of the IFRS Taxonomy 2009 for public comment.

26 Feb09 -released its IFRS Taxonomy Module Manager
(ITMM) for open source.

Feb2009 the IASC Foundation released the simplified Chinese
translation of the complete label linkbase for the IFRS
Taxonomy 2008,

Jun2009: released new support materials for the IFRS
Taxonomy 2009 and Arabic and Spanish translations


Context rich US GAAP and IFRS GAAP XBRL taxonomies issued by
FASB and IASB including calculation, presentation, reference
(GAAP) and language link-bases will supplement and may replace
traditional paper bound volumes and become the de-facto
standards for electronic business reporting.
These taxonomies will become embedded into ERP systems, data
warehouses, accounting systems and desktop reporting toolsets
to produce XBRL financial reports.


…adding semantic intelligence..(borrowed from the airline industry)

Tramore Bay , Waterford , Ireland - Latitude :55.1833 degrees and Longitude :-8.03333 degrees

Social Networks participants take data
transmitted from aircraft transponders
and collaborate to overlay onto Google
Maps API for iPhone


Transparency accountants XML XSLT adoption emerging
nations align analysts assurance auditors audit-committee
benefits semantic-web G20 codification committee AJAX
company complex contact copyright CFO corporate data XSB

download dynamic IFRS enterprise exchange Financial
Reporting Web 3.0 executives extensible
fasb filings financial forms-free GAAP SOA hosts http iasb ima
industry information stylesheet interactive international XII
internet investors ireland webservices mobile language licence
global RSS Atom Cloud-Computing Offshore Outsourced GAAP
versus IFRS US-GAAP Crowd-sourced Realtime Assurance
XBRL OpenSource Social-Media CSR sustainability XHTML
interoperability standards convergence


Technology is transforming the dialogue we
have we our stakeholders. Traditional
distribution channels for business reporting
are being replaced with interactive digital
media.

User-demand for real-time interactive
financial reports will drive the current
generation from web based static financial
reporting to an XBRL-enabled semantic web


6. Interactive Data and the Annual Report


7. Financial Reporting and Mobile Computing
…in the not too distant future


Web3.0, semantic web,
XBRL and will be a
disruptive force within
business reporting and
continue to drive
transformation within the
finance department and
CPA firms in the coming
years.
Mobile applications will
begin to store your XBRL
data in the cloud as
opposed to on the mobile
device, and the
applications will become
more powerful as
processing power is also
offloaded to the cloud.

42 18 March 2011 XBRL for Young CPAs April 2011

8. Human Readable Interactive Data (iXBRL)

Inline XBRL is a standard for
embedding XBRL fragments into an
HTML document or web page. The
objective is to provide documents
which can be viewed in a web
browser while making use of XBRL
tags which can be processed
automatically by consuming
applications. This specification
defines the syntax for such
documents and how the syntax
maps into an XBRL instance.


XBRL fragments can be
written onto XHTML web
pages and consumed by
standard web browsers
enabling easier human
reading.

Wed Browser add-ons can
be used in the review and
sign-off process to ensure
quality assurance.
Additionally the “look and
feel” of the printed financial
statements can be preserved
using iXBRL specification.


 Raising awareness- understanding XBRL and what problem it
solves
 Implementation Options – time spent planning your
implementation project will save time later
 Selecting Software- XBRL is an evolving technologies.
Software options are varied and evolving quickly
 Mapping Data – the mapping of data to taxonomies needs to
be understood and practiced
 Visualising the Data- different regulators may require
different options to make XBRL human-readable
 Quality Assurance- a blended skill-set of technology , XML
languages and financial knowledge is required to ensure
quality of your filings- build your team accordingly


1. Get involved early
2. Understand what XBRL is and how it will
impact you
3. Build the right team
4. Evaluate your strategies
5. Embrace technology as a change agent
6. Understand the overlaps between
accounting skills and technology


Conor O'Kelly is 1st Vice Chairman of XBRL
International, the non-profit consortium of over 600
members developing the XBRL Standard and a member
of the XBRL International Board of Directors.
He is the past Chairman of XBRL Europe, the
consortium of European XBRL Members , past Chair of
XBRL Ireland and represents Ireland on the International
Steering Committee of XBRL International.
He is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland with an
MSc in IT Management . He has twelve years
background in global IT managed services outsourcing,
global project management and strategic IT business
planning with Hewlett Packard and Ericsson.
Mr. O'Kelly is a past member of Council of Chartered
Accountants Ireland.


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