Welcome to XBRL For Dummies! Whether you're a business person (such as a CEO, CFO, accountant, project manager, and so on) or a technical person (that is, a "geek," software architect, developer, or database administrator, and so on), you have done yourself a huge favor by picking up this book if you're trying to find out what this global XBRL phenomenon is all about.
Some of you may have heard about the Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, before, and you're perhaps somewhat curious about XBRL. You want to understand XBRL, but everything you've seen seems to be overly complex, technically oriented, and filled with jargon. Perhaps you can't really understand what XBRL is from the explanations you've previously encountered, and you have no idea where to even start.
And chances are, you really don't care about XBRL. The truth is, you shouldn't care about XBRL. What you do care about is what XBRL provides and how it will impact what you will likely have to do in the future. You're in luck, because we talk about that topic in this book. We're going to help you get started with XBRL.
This book is a thorough introduction to the Extensible Business Reporting Language. This book isn't a programmer's reference book or an exhaustive cookbook of how to use XBRL. We wrote this book for smart, savvy, forward-thinking business people and technologists who want to see the complete picture and don't have a lot of time to muck around trying to pull all these pieces together themselves. We pull the important pieces together for you.
XBRL is a transformational technology that will have broad impact on every organization — its reach is global. This book covers important details as well as visionary and architectural aspects of XBRL. It provides the critical information you need to make business and technical decisions about how exactly to approach XBRL. This book explores both the business and technical impacts of XBRL.
Unfortunately, understanding XBRL means that you're going to run into technical terminology and perhaps even financial reporting and accounting minutiae. Trust us, if we could leave out this jargon, we would, but we can't. We explain all this important terminology so that both business people and technical people can understand it.
To help important terms stand out in this book, we use an italic font. We also use boldfaced words to highlight key words in bulleted lists and numbered steps. Monofont indicates a Web address or a piece of code or XML/XBRL.
Some Web addresses may break across two lines of text. If that happens, rest assured that we haven't put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So, when you're accessing one of these Web sites, just type the address exactly as it appears in the book, pretending as if the line break doesn't exist. Tip: To avoid having to type these long links, go to www.dummies.com/go/xbrl. This takes you to a landing page where you can click the link you need.
You don't need to be a technical guru, an accounting guru, or any other guru to get the most out of this book. In fact, you don't need to know much about accounting or any of these other things at all.
This book does make some bold (and potentially foolish) assumptions about you, the reader. Here are our assumptions about you:
We realize that you may be from any country, not just the United States. We've done our best to make this book globally applicable as XBRL is a global standard.
We assume that you're a business person. Okay, well, you might actually be a technical person, but this book is primarily written for business people. Business people will be comfortable with it, and so will technical people. What we did not want to do is write a technical book business people would be forever lost in.
We assume that you have some knowledge of business and financial reporting. Because business people generally understand business and financial reporting to at least some degree, many of our examples are financial reporting related. Technical people, don't worry: You will be fine. We don't get into debits and credits, which generally freak you out!
We assume that you're no dummy. You may not be an expert on XBRL, but you're a smart, capable person within your area of expertise who is ready to see how XBRL can help you do things better, faster, and cheaper.
You can read XBRL For Dummies in either of two ways:
Read each chapter in sequential order, from cover to cover. If this book is your first real exposure to XBRL terminology, concepts, and technology, this method is probably the way to go.
Read selected chapters or sections of particular interest to you in any order you choose. The chapters have been written to stand on their own as much as possible.
A significant portion of this book explains the bigger picture about XBRL. The book is less about the angle brackets that make up XBRL and more about the approach you should take to working with XBRL. And remember, this book is about getting you started down the right path, not providing you with every aspect and detail of implementing a mongo XBRL system. (Although, hey, the book is very helpful to those of you implementing mongo XBRL systems.)
We have organized this book into five parts, each designed to serve a basic need:
Part I: The Very Least You Need to Know about XBRL
This part provides you with the absolute minimum you need to know about XBRL. Chapter 1 provides a conceptual overview of XBRL to help you get your head around what XBRL is. Chapter 2 provides a solid grounding in the essential concepts that help you truly appreciate why XBRL is what it is and how it works. Chapter 3 provides important critical details of XBRL's parts and how those parts work together. Chapter 4 is an XBRL primer; you get a chance to look at the angle brackets should you care to. Chapter 5 finishes off this part. Here we explain how XBRL will impact various different types of people who interact with it.
Part II: Embracing XBRL for Classic Challenges and New Possibilities
The chapters in Part II focus on business information exchange as it exists today and an emerging alternative approach that views each of the links of your business information exchange process as part of a chain. Chapter 6 looks at what business information exchange is all about — how it's practiced today, its objectives, business and technical dynamics impacting it, and the possibility of a new model for business information exchange. Chapter 7 introduces the notion of business information exchange as being a chain, stepping back from the individual links introduced in the previous chapter. Chapter 8 takes a visionary look the future of business information exchange and XBRL's role in that future.
Part III: Successfully Pursuing and Executing an XBRL Project
Part III is about how to successfully use XBRL within your organization. It helps you avoid missteps before you make them. Chapter 9 helps you see how others are making use of XBRL. Chapter 10 helps you make a business case for XBRL. Chapter 11 helps you understand different approaches to implementing XBRL so that you can find the approach that is the best for you. Chapter 12 points out the things you need to consider when implementing a project which has an XBRL component by project phase. If you must comply with the U.S. SEC mandate, you'll appreciate Chapter 13.
Part IV: Working with XBRL Taxonomies and Instances
You can dig a hole with a hand shovel, but a backhoe is more efficient, depending on the size of the hole, of course. It's all about choosing the right tool. In this part, we help you understand the tools you need to work with XBRL taxonomies and XBRL instances. We also help you understand what to do with those tools.
Chapter 14 looks at what types of software applications you might use when working with XBRL and the purposes they serve. Chapter 15 is a step-by-step walk-through of things like creating, validating, and viewing XBRL taxonomies and XBRL instances. Chapter 16 reviews the modules of XBRL that make up the XBRL family of specifications in greater detail, pointing out where they can be helpful to you. Chapter 17 is XBRL taxonomy time! We focus on XBRL taxonomies, providing you with a boatload of useful information you will need. Chapter 18 is all about the XBRL instance, drilling into helpful details you need to know about. Chapter 19 is where we go out on a limb to help you plan your future. We take a peek at what may be coming in the short term and in the long term for XBRL.
Part V: The Part of Tens
Last, but certainly not least, the For Dummies institution: The Part of Tens. This part of the book has three chapters packed with XBRL tips, hints, and other advice. You may want to read this part first to get some instant gratification. Or, you may want to read it last to provide the icing on your XBRL cake.
Chapter 20 provides ten ways to find out more about XBRL sooner, flattening your learning curve, should you have a desire to do so. Chapter 21 describes important technical concepts in easy-to-understand business terms, terms needed to truly grasp how XBRL actually does what it does for those who care about that level of understanding. And finally, Chapter 22 ends your journey by providing explanations for a number of commonly confused odds and ends, which may be important to more technically inclined readers.
Tip
This icon denotes tips and tricks of the trade that make your projects go more smoothly and otherwise ease your foray into XBRL.
Note
XBRL is all about computer technology used to solve a business problem. When you see this icon, the accompanying explanation digs into the underlying technology and processes, in case you want to get behind the scenes, under the hood, or beneath the covers. These paragraphs are eminently skippable by the less technically inclined.
Note
Some things about XBRL are just so darned important that they bear keeping in mind. This icon lets you know of a fact that you need to file away for future reference.
Warning
This icon indicates pitfalls you need to be aware of. Disregarding these might come back to bite you.
This is the easy part: You bought this book, you're wearing your "I
Well, you open the book to Chapter 1 and settle in for a quiet afternoon of absorbing everything you can about XBRL, if that is your style. Or, for those who are more on the go, you can pick up this book for 15 minutes a day and flip through it looking for topics that are of interest to you. Or, you may have some other approach that works for you. That is the beauty of this type of book — all our chapters are meant to be read either as part of a whole book, or just on their own. You should never feel lost if you skip around or your pet eats Chapter 5.
The book has a companion Cheat Sheet online that is referenced at the front of this book. Check there for the Web address to access the online Cheat Sheet. Key concepts used throughout this book and a high level model of XBRL are described in the Cheat Sheet. It will be helpful to you no matter how you read the book.
If you want to do a bit more exploring right now, you may find these examples helpful. If you like reverse-engineering things to better understand them, these examples can help you down that path:
A "Hello World" example: You can find a basic "Hello World"-type sample XBRL taxonomy and XBRL instance as well as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with macros that generate the XBRL on this Web page:
http://xbrl.squarespace.com/journal/2008/12/18/hello-world-xbrl-example.html.A comprehensive example: You can see a more complex example of an XBRL taxonomy and XBRL instance at
www.xbrlsite.com/examples/comprehensiveexample/2008-04-18.A real financial statement example: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a great viewer with lots of big XBRL instances hooked to some big XBRL taxonomies — this is the real deal. Check it out at
http://viewerprototype1.com/viewer.Real XBRL taxonomies: At
www.abra-search.com/ABRASearch.html, you find a viewer that lets you explore a number of different XBRL taxonomies.ABRA-SEARCH.COMis Web site provided by ABZ Reporting GmbH, a provider of open-source software to the XBRL community.
So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and dive right into the phenomenal global world of XBRL. Ready? Set? Go!