XBRL for General Ledger

XBRL.org Releases Software Format for Public Comment That Allows Data to be Moved Into and Out of the General Ledger

XML-Based Software Format Allows Linkage of Other XML-based Transaction Level Efforts to the General Ledger

New York, NY, USA. June 18, 2001.

XBRL.org announced today that it is releasing for public comment XBRL for General Ledger.

It is currently designed to meet international accounting requirements and allow an extensible, flexible, multi-national solution to exchange data required by internal finance, accountants, creditors, banks or other audiences across all software formats that can be brought into and out of accounting systems and reported using XBRL. It will also allow the future linkage of XML development on the transactional level to the general ledger level as such frameworks are developed. Working in alliance with the UN/EDIFACT WORKING GROUP (EWG) this Joint EWG Accounting, Auditing, Registration and Financial Information Services (EWG sub working group D14) and XBRL.org (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) effort is focused on the urgent need to fill the gap between e-business and e-accounting and overcome the inefficiencies of disparate, non-integrated and outsourced accounting and financial systems by using the power of XML - the Extensible Markup Language.

Members of XBRL.org represent the world's largest global financial services, accounting and technology communities. XBRL for General Ledger is an agreement on how to represent accounting and after-the-fact operational information and transfer it to and from a data hub or communicate it in a data stream.

This new work incorporates the UN Standard Messages ENTREC (Journal) and LEDGER. Users of XBRL for General Ledger will be able to more easily bridge the gap between operational, off-site or outsourced systems and their back office accounting and reporting systems. XBRL for General Ledger has the potential to unleash information needed for internal financial and managerial reporting by entities around the world and to facilitate the development of new systems for the business metrics of tomorrow by leveraging current company investments in EDI.

XBRL for General Ledger is currently under review for comments by any interested party within the financial information supply chain and is anticipated to be available for public use in September 2001. XBRL for the General Ledger is one of several XBRL-based initiatives that streamlines the financial information supply chain which includes public and private companies, the accounting profession, data aggregators, the investment community and all other users of financial information.

"XBRL for General Ledger allows companies with a wide variety of accounting systems or outsourced operations to exchange data on a global basis for use in management decisions such as: consolidation; M&A, and joint venture operating and reporting situations," said Mike Willis, Chair of XBRL.org and Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers. "In addition, XBRL for General Ledger allows organizations to link their transaction level XML-activity to their general ledger level. This allows management dynamic access to relevant detail for analysis of a wide range of areas including performance measurement, budgeting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and purchasing in a very efficient way."

XBRL also agreed to join forces with the UN/EDIFACT for the definition and validation of a set of protocol-neutral accounting terms valid within both the UN/EDIFACT and the XBRL business processes. This single set of accounting definitions would be the basis for future developments with new and emerging technologies, and would be submitted for inclusion into the UN/EDIFACT and XBRL initiative.

Building on the power of the XBRL consortium members use of XML and the experience of EDIFICAS in EDIFACT defining business communications syntax and business reporting forms, XBRL will help to define business processes and modeling using core business objects via XML. Building on the framework in the international arena, XBRL will be working to help formalize the effort.

The XBRL initiative is a worldwide effort to develop a common framework for using XML for business reports such as financial statements, bank loans, credit reports and tax filings. The EDIFICAS Europe developments started in the early 1990s, the whole accounting and audit framework has been defined with a set of eight messages; five of those eight messages received the UN-Standard message status.

To obtain a copy of the public comment XBRL for General Ledger, please go to www.xbrl.org. Comments are welcome and should be provided via instructions provided.

About UN/EDIFACT

The United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport Working Group (UN/EDIFACT), is an international body under the umbrella of Economic Commission for Europe, empowered by United Nations to standardize electronic documents and data relating to trade of goods and services. D14 is the sub-working group in charge of "accounting, auditing, registration and financial information services". For more information about UN-EDIFACT Working Group, please visit http://www.edifact-wg.org or http://www.unece.org/cefact/

About XBRL.org

For more information about XBRL, please visit http://www.xbrl.org.

Members of the XBRL.org Committee include: ACCPAC International, Inc.; ACL Services Ltd; Advisor Technology Services, LLC; American Institute of CPAs; Arthur Andersen LLP; BDO Seidman, LLP; Best Software; Bowne & Co., Inc.; Bridge Information Systems; Bryant College; Business Wire; Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants; CaseWare International Inc.; Certified General Accountants of Canada Association of Canada; Cogniant, Inc.; Council of Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut van Registeraccountants; Count-net.com SA; CPA Australia; CPA2Biz; Crowe, Chizek and Company, LLP; Deloitte & Touche, LLP; Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS); Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; Dresdner Kleinwort Benson; Deutsche Bundesbank; EDGAR Online, Inc.; eKeeper.com; eLedger.com, Inc.; Elemental Interactive; e-Numerate Solutions Incorporated; ePace! Software; ePartners, Inc.; Epicor Software Corporation; Ernst & Young, LLP; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Fidelity Investments; Financial Software Group; FinArch; First Light Communications, Inc.; FRS; FRx Software Corporation; Gcom2 Solutions; General Electric Company; Global Filings, Inc.; Grant Thornton LLP; Great Plains Software, Inc.; HOLT Value Associates; Hong Kong Society of Accountants; Hyperion Solutions Corp.; IBM; Ibmatrix; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia; Infoteria Corporation; Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland; Institute of Management Accountants; International Accounting Standards Committee; International Federation of Accountants; I-Lumen, Inc.; Innovision Corporation; J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc.; Japan Digital Disclosure Inc.; KPMG Consulting; KPMG, LLP; Lawson Software; Microsoft Corporation; MIP, Inc.; Moody's Risk Management Services, Inc.; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter; Multex.com, Inc.; National Center of Charitable Statistics (NCCS); National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (Taiwan); Navision; NEC Planning Research, Inc. (Japan); NetLedger, Inc.; New River, Inc.; Newtec; Oinke, Inc.; Oracle Corporation; PeopleSoft, Inc.;PPA GmbH; Practitioners Publishing Company; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Reuters Group LP; RIA; R.R. Donnelly Financial; Sage Software; SAP AG; Seattle Pacific University Center for Professional Development; Standard and Poor's; Syspro; The Woodburn Group; US Advisor, Inc.; U.S. Census Bureau; Virtual Growth, Inc.; and XBRL Solutions, Inc.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	XBRL for General Ledger XBRL.org Releases Software Format for Public Comment That Allows Data to be Moved Into and Out of the General Ledger XML-Based Software Format Allows Linkage of Other XML-based Transaction Level Efforts to the General Ledger New York, NY, USA. June 18, 2001. XBRL.org announced today that it is releasing for public comment XBRL for General Ledger. It is currently designed to meet international accounting requirements and allow an extensible, flexible, multi-national solution to exchange data required by internal finance, accountants, creditors, banks or other audiences across all software formats that can be brought into and out of accounting systems and reported using XBRL. It will also allow the future linkage of XML development on the transactional level to the general ledger level as such frameworks are developed. Working in alliance with the UN/EDIFACT WORKING GROUP (EWG) this Joint EWG Accounting, Auditing, Registration and Financial Information Services (EWG sub working group D14) and XBRL.org (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) effort is focused on the urgent need to fill the gap between e-business and e-accounting and overcome the inefficiencies of disparate, non-integrated and outsourced accounting and financial systems by using the power of XML - the Extensible Markup Language. Members of XBRL.org represent the world's largest global financial services, accounting and technology communities. XBRL for General Ledger is an agreement on how to represent accounting and after-the-fact operational information and transfer it to and from a data hub or communicate it in a data stream. This new work incorporates the UN Standard Messages ENTREC (Journal) and LEDGER. Users of XBRL for General Ledger will be able to more easily bridge the gap between operational, off-site or outsourced systems and their back office accounting and reporting systems. XBRL for General Ledger has the potential to unleash information needed for internal financial and managerial reporting by entities around the world and to facilitate the development of new systems for the business metrics of tomorrow by leveraging current company investments in EDI. XBRL for General Ledger is currently under review for comments by any interested party within the financial information supply chain and is anticipated to be available for public use in September 2001. XBRL for the General Ledger is one of several XBRL-based initiatives that streamlines the financial information supply chain which includes public and private companies, the accounting profession, data aggregators, the investment community and all other users of financial information. "XBRL for General Ledger allows companies with a wide variety of accounting systems or outsourced operations to exchange data on a global basis for use in management decisions such as: consolidation; M&A, and joint venture operating and reporting situations," said Mike Willis, Chair of XBRL.org and Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers. "In addition, XBRL for General Ledger allows organizations to link their transaction level XML-activity to their general ledger level. This allows management dynamic access to relevant detail for analysis of a wide range of areas including performance measurement, budgeting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and purchasing in a very efficient way." XBRL also agreed to join forces with the UN/EDIFACT for the definition and validation of a set of protocol-neutral accounting terms valid within both the UN/EDIFACT and the XBRL business processes. This single set of accounting definitions would be the basis for future developments with new and emerging technologies, and would be submitted for inclusion into the UN/EDIFACT and XBRL initiative. Building on the power of the XBRL consortium members use of XML and the experience of EDIFICAS in EDIFACT defining business communications syntax and business reporting forms, XBRL will help to define business processes and modeling using core business objects via XML. Building on the framework in the international arena, XBRL will be working to help formalize the effort. The XBRL initiative is a worldwide effort to develop a common framework for using XML for business reports such as financial statements, bank loans, credit reports and tax filings. The EDIFICAS Europe developments started in the early 1990s, the whole accounting and audit framework has been defined with a set of eight messages; five of those eight messages received the UN-Standard message status. To obtain a copy of the public comment XBRL for General Ledger, please go to www.xbrl.org. Comments are welcome and should be provided via instructions provided. About UN/EDIFACT The United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport Working Group (UN/EDIFACT), is an international body under the umbrella of Economic Commission for Europe, empowered by United Nations to standardize electronic documents and data relating to trade of goods and services. D14 is the sub-working group in charge of "accounting, auditing, registration and financial information services". For more information about UN-EDIFACT Working Group, please visit http://www.edifact-wg.org or http://www.unece.org/cefact/ About XBRL.org For more information about XBRL, please visit http://www.xbrl.org. Members of the XBRL.org Committee include: ACCPAC International, Inc.; ACL Services Ltd; Advisor Technology Services, LLC; American Institute of CPAs; Arthur Andersen LLP; BDO Seidman, LLP; Best Software; Bowne & Co., Inc.; Bridge Information Systems; Bryant College; Business Wire; Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants; CaseWare International Inc.; Certified General Accountants of Canada Association of Canada; Cogniant, Inc.; Council of Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut van Registeraccountants; Count-net.com SA; CPA Australia; CPA2Biz; Crowe, Chizek and Company, LLP; Deloitte & Touche, LLP; Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS); Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; Dresdner Kleinwort Benson; Deutsche Bundesbank; EDGAR Online, Inc.; eKeeper.com; eLedger.com, Inc.; Elemental Interactive; e-Numerate Solutions Incorporated; ePace! Software; ePartners, Inc.; Epicor Software Corporation; Ernst & Young, LLP; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Fidelity Investments; Financial Software Group; FinArch; First Light Communications, Inc.; FRS; FRx Software Corporation; Gcom2 Solutions; General Electric Company; Global Filings, Inc.; Grant Thornton LLP; Great Plains Software, Inc.; HOLT Value Associates; Hong Kong Society of Accountants; Hyperion Solutions Corp.; IBM; Ibmatrix; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia; Infoteria Corporation; Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland; Institute of Management Accountants; International Accounting Standards Committee; International Federation of Accountants; I-Lumen, Inc.; Innovision Corporation; J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc.; Japan Digital Disclosure Inc.; KPMG Consulting; KPMG, LLP; Lawson Software; Microsoft Corporation; MIP, Inc.; Moody's Risk Management Services, Inc.; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter; Multex.com, Inc.; National Center of Charitable Statistics (NCCS); National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (Taiwan); Navision; NEC Planning Research, Inc. (Japan); NetLedger, Inc.; New River, Inc.; Newtec; Oinke, Inc.; Oracle Corporation; PeopleSoft, Inc.;PPA GmbH; Practitioners Publishing Company; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Reuters Group LP; RIA; R.R. Donnelly Financial; Sage Software; SAP AG; Seattle Pacific University Center for Professional Development; Standard and Poor's; Syspro; The Woodburn Group; US Advisor, Inc.; U.S. Census Bureau; Virtual Growth, Inc.; and XBRL Solutions, Inc. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."