As founders of a small technology data start-up pany,Alex Rapp and Pranav Ghai have bee big names in the burgeoning world of XBRL.They have engineered a tool for viewing and analyzing data in XBRL,and it’s freely available on their web through a simple registration process.

In developing the tool --and it’s a work in progress --they’ve learned a great deal about the potential and the limits of XBRL as it is used presently in capital markets.First of all,they’ve e to regnize the seriousness of the error problem that the Securities and Exchange mission keeps pounding.

“The mon plaint we hear from users is about errors,extensions,and other innsistencies,”said Rapp at an AICPA nference session devoted to XBRL use.As Rapp and Ghai have worked to develop their open-source application,they’ve disvered and rrected an estimated 1million errors,he said.With the Securities and Exchange mission reporting it has gathered 35million separate financial statement data points in XBRL,that represents an error rate of about 2.8percent.

As an example,Rapp said errors in simply describing the submitted document and the entity are “epidemic,”present in 3to 5percent of all filings.panies also make mistakes in creating extensions where elements are present and available in the taxonomy,making parability difficult or impossible.

Rapp said he and Ghai also hear investors say the XBRL repository doesn’t yet ntain enough information to be useful,although that’s a problem that only time can rrect.He said investors and analysts also are frustrated by how difficult it is to learn and use XBRL given the present limited availability of user-friendly applications.

Ghai provided acuntants and preparers with a “test drive”of its web,flipping quickly through individual pany filings,side-by-side filings,and aggregate industry data.“Five,eight,ten years ago,you were paying someone a lot of money to do this for you,”he said.He acknowledged there’s a great deal of demand for MD&A and data like audit fees to be presented in XBRL.

Calcbench won the inaugural XBRL US Challenge by developing an open-source application that would enable investors to begin using XBRL data.

中文新闻：Calcbench工具实现XBRL数据轻松访问

原文地址：http://hitachidatainteractive./2013/04/17/calcbench%E2%80%99s-web-based-tool-gives-easy-aess-to-xbrl-data/