XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) offers major benefits at all stages of business reporting and analysis. The benefits are seen in automation; cost saving; faster, more reliable, and more accurate handling of data; improved analysis; and in better quality of information and decision-making.
XBRL enables producers and consumers of financial data to switch resources away from costly manual processes, typically involving time-consuming comparison, assembly and reentry of data. They are able to concentrate effort on analysis, aided by software that can validate and manipulate XBRL information. As a result, searches that might in the past have taken hours can be completed with XBRL in a fraction of a second.
The use of XBRL does not imply an enforced standardization of financial reporting. On the contrary, the language is a flexible one, which is intended to support all current aspects of reporting in different countries and industries. Its extensible nature means that it can be adjusted to meet particular business requirements, even at the individual organization level.
Those who stand to benefit from the implementation of XBRL include all who collect business data, including governments, regulators, economic agencies, stock exchanges, financial information companies, as well as those who produce or use data, including accountants, auditors, company managers, financial analysts, investors, and creditors. Among those who can take advantage of XBRL include accountancy software vendors, the financial services industry, investor relations companies, and the information technology industry.
Membership also provides the opportunity to directly influence development of the XBRL specification, associated technical rules, marketing, and other development issues.
All types of organizations can use XBRL to save costs and improve efficiency in handling business and financial information. Because XBRL is extensible and flexible, it can be adapted to a wide variety of different requirements. All participants in the financial information supply chain can benefit, whether they are preparers, transmitters, or users of business data.
Learn more about how XBRL can benefit:
· data collection/reporting business and data consumption/ analysis business
· banks, loans, and credit management business