The Federation of European Aountants (FEE) issued a policy statement on XBRL.  The six page policy statement titled eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - The impact on aountants and auditors can be found here on the Web.

The policy statement goes further than anything else that I have seen ing out of the aounting munity in saying that aountants are going to have to understand XBRL.  I agree with these statements.  The FEE states

There are two pillars to XBRL: an IT literacy pillar and a technical aounting and auditing pillar.  anisations wishing to adopt XBRL will need to nsider both pillars in establishing their training needs to ensure suessful use of XBRL.

The FEE also points out key areas for training for aountants, identifying necessary skills required including:

■  Select the appropriate taxonomy and download from the appropriate web page;

■  Identify taxonomy elements required for any particular instance;

■  Identify when a valid taxonomy extension is required;

■  Create valid extensions; 

■  Create valid instance documents in line with the appropriate specification or user guide.

If you are an aountant anywhere in the world, particularly if you practice in the area of public aounting, you definitely want to take a look at this policy statement as a clue of what is ing down the road in the world of aounting and financial reporting.