MANGALORE: Move over HTML, welcome XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). This is the mantra that The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is pushing for, given that the last date for filing of company's balance sheet and annual return for current fiscal is falling due during October and November. Companies with annual turnover, share capital above Rs 5 crore are required to file their returns in XBRL format.

ICAI president G Ramaswamy said they will host training programmes on bringing taxonomy on how to prepare statements (using XBRL). This will help companies upload documents, e-filing of balance sheets and final statements.

With the ministry of corporate affairs plumping for this, Ramaswamy said undertaking comparative studies of companies in a sector can be done at the click of a mouse.

"XBRL-enabled filing of financial statements is important to undertake analytical studies and to detect early warning signs of fraud in the corporate world," Ramaswamy said, citing the instance of Satyam.

ICAI is working with the ministry and providing support for creating taxonomy and tool for implementing XBRL, he said, and added that government has extended the date for filing of returns for specified companies to November.

In the first phase, MCA has directed about 30,000 companies across India to file their balance sheet and profit-and-loss account (for year ended March 31, 2011) using XBRL format before November 30.

e-transfer of biz data

XBRL is XML-based computer language, next version of HTML, for electronic transmission of business and financial data. The goal of XBRL, an open standard, is to standardize the automation of business intelligence. It uses tags to describe and identify each item of data in an electronic document. The tags allow computer programs to sort through data and analyze relationships quickly and generate output in various formats.