1         Introduction

Adoption of the XBRL standard for the presentation of business and financial information always requires some effort on behalf of the organisation interested in integrating a new technology into their existing information systems.  The work involved may vary depending on the level of integration of XBRL, from preparing a simple report using a taxonomy created by another entity, to a total restructuring of the business process and systems, including the development, approval, and publication of taxonomies. 

Those organisations already accustomed to working with XML are not going to see XBRL as especially new, since it is simply a language built on XML.  However, other organisations will surely appreciate a reference document like this one as a first point of contact with the XBRL standard.  This White Paper is the first study to be published by the Technology Working Group of XBRL Spain, and it is their intention to address the basic questions that  future users of this open-source standard will need to understand in order to exchange financial data and reports.

Chapter 3 of this White Paperintroduces XBRL as a common, global language to label data used in business reporting worldwide.  The basic concepts of XML and XBRL are covered in this chapter, and differences between them are pointed out.

Chapter 4 offers a closer look at XBRL and the elements that comprise a taxonomy and those that comprise an XBRL instance document.  Also covered are the various possibilities to send, receive, store, and retrieve XBRL reports, and a functional and technical architecture is outlined to serve as a reference for the adoption of XBRL.  It is absolutely essential is to have control over the creation and maintenance of a taxonomy, so here you will find suggested best practices for versioning.  You will also find information on the performance of XBRL applications, and recommendations are made to optimize performance.  Although security is somewhat outside the scope of the XBRL specification, security is considered to be very important and this chapter outlines those aspects relating to the generation, storage, and transmission of XBRL documents.

Chapter 5 offers an overview of vendor solutions and tools currently available in the marketplace, both for the creation of taxonomies and the generation and management of XBRL reports, each with their individual features and deliverables.

Chapter 6 covers the area of training, but only to give some basic ideas on the minimum knowledge that technicial IT staff should have when carrying out a project with XBRL.  This chapter also references a document entitled “Training and Best Practices”, prepared by the Working Group for Training and Development of XBRL Spain, which goes into depth about training requirements and how to develop this type of project

Finally, Chapter 7 contains some examples of XBRL implementations that may serve as a reference for those who plan on adopting this standard.

XBRL White_Paper by XBRL Spain.pdf