The "2nd Symposium on XBRL Application and Promotion", jointly sponsored by the Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI) and the Accounting Computerization Professional Committee of the Accounting Society of Shanghai (ACPC of ASS), was held in the newly built 3rd Teaching Building of SNAI on July 21, 2006. Attending the meeting were 20-odd experts and scholars from universities, government departments, financial institutions, software enterprises, intermediaries and the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS).

The Symposium was co-presided over by Prof. Jin Guanghua, Director of the ACPC of ASS and Doctoral Supervisor of Tongji University, and Prof. Liu Qin, Vice Party Secretary of SNAI and Director of the SNAI Information Centre. Elites of XBRL research and application exchanges their XBRL application experience and expectation, to make preparation for submitting research subjects and engaging in XBRL application. The Symposium consisted of 5 theme lectures and 2 panel discussions.

Secretary General Hu Renyu of the ACPC of ASS introduced XBRL's international and domestic development since Charlie Hoffman, an accountant in Washington, U.S.A., proposed the concept of XBRL in 1998, as well as the contribution to XBRL development made by the banking, securities and insurance industries. According to Hu, XBRL development calls for the global cooperation of all industries and will expand rapidly in spite of all kinds of difficulties in research and practice.

General Manager Yang Baogang of the Application Development Center of UFIDA Software Co., Ltd. (UFIDA) gave an introduction to the orientation of the UFIDA Application Development Center and its research and development of XBRL application. The Center invited Charlie Hoffman in June. UFIDA took a lead in XBRL application when helping customers enter the international market and began relevant research and development. From now on, scholars and experts will be invited to participate in studying UFIDA's relevant XBRL subjects.

Dean Prof. Zhu Jianguo of the Accountancy Department of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology made a report themed "XBRL and GBT19581-2004", introducing the similarities and differences between XBRL technology and Information Technology-Data Interface of Accounting Software (GBT19581-2004) in design purpose, technical means and implementation ways. According to Zhu, both XBRL and GBT19581-2004 try to solve the interoperability of data with different sources. XBRL attaches importance to interoperability among network transmission platforms, while the latter to interoperability among different software. XBRL uses XML format to store data, while the latter text formats with list separator. XBRL testifies validity and legitimacy of instance through schema, and the latter explains data files through the format definition file output by the software. The application purposes and environments of the two standards are not completely same, thus they can advance hand in hand in the future, Zhu said. XBRL application may have a more promising future, especially in processing data with poor structure and in the case of a large amount of data browsing.

Dean Prof. and Doctoral Supervisor Zhang Tianxi of the Accountancy Department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University made a speech themed "XBRL in the Perspective of Accounting", analyzing the possible influence on accounting industry exerted by XBRL technology and its future development direction. According to his speech, XBRL technology will promote the international convergence of all countries' accounting standards, decrease financial embezzlement and revolutionize the enterprise internal information systems.

Prof. Liu Qin questioned the current popular views about XBRL in his speech themed "XBRL: How Far away from Ideal Network Business Reporting Language". According to Liu, some exaggerates XBRL technology's advantages and application boundary. Since accounting standards of all countries, i.e., the foundation of XBRL taxonomy, are different, the enterprises are lacking in original motivation of XBRL application. Also, XBRL technology faces some difficulties. Thus XBRL instance is limited in share scope and will come across barriers in popularization. Therefore, XBRL has a certain gap with the ideal universal network business reporting language.

In the afternoon, experts and scholars made in-depth discussions on XBRL specification, taxonomy and instance. GUCAS Prof. Wang Ying and Prof. Yuan Shumin of Shanghai Finance University were the callers of the two panel discussions. Attendee proposed a lot of valuable suggestions, and the two callers made summary speeches at the end of the Symposium.