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XBRL Update 2000-10-02


Where we are

The XBRL consortium is almost a year old - an infant in the physical world but a fast growing adolescent in the Internet world. Well beyond its initial growing pains, the consortium now has over 65 members, hailing from all sectors of the business reporting supply chain and representing over 20 jurisdictions. Accomplishments to date include:

*Formally launch efforts completed in two jurisdictions (US and IASC).

*Formal launch efforts planned in the next few months in five more jurisdictions (Canada, UK, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia)

*Published the XBRL Financial Statement Specification and the US GAAP Commercial and Industrial taxonomy and actively working on 13 additional taxonomies.

*Proactively reached out to the corporate reporting community, with the result that six global Fortune 1000 companies are currently "field testing'" the published XBRL specification and taxonomy.

The consortium members are also pleased that several of its members (Navision, Caseware and XBRL Solutions) have released XBRL enabled products and more members are scheduled to do so in the very near term.

Where we are going

The XBRL consortium is making strong headway in fulfilling its goal of becoming an independent, international organization and will take the important step of formally spinning out from its founding organization, the AICPA. This move will ensure that the necessary international framework is based upon a global orientation and that participating jurisdictions and industries take full responsibility for development of their individual taxonomies. Formal XBRL launch events are scheduled in the next few months for Canada, Australia and Germany. This is expected to exponentially increase both XBRL membership and the availability of resources for developing taxonomies in several jurisdictions that are seeking to make their corporate reporting supply chains e-business enabled. Expect that additional XBRL products (tax reports, statutory and regulatory reports, etc.) will go from the strategy document to the working group effort in the near term.

The XBRL Internet language is still in its formative stages and many of the early prognostications are still the responsibility of XBRL consortium membership. With the remarkable progress already made and more headway expected, the consortium's vision of e-business for the business reporting supply chain is taking shape and it's path to future adoption is clear.

What you can do

Anyone reading this: *visit http://www.xbrl.org *Join XBRL and/or contribute to the effort

Corporate readers: *Engage in the development of the relevant jurisdictional and industrytaxonomies. Don't wait here, just do it. *Upgrade your software applications and tools to those that are XBRL enabled *Draft your financial statements in XBRL

Analysts / Creditors / Shareholders: *XBRL enable your data extraction tools and analytical models *Visit with the software members of XBRL and see what they are doing to makeyour life easier. *Include 'XBRL Format' as a 'premium reporting format'. Ask Companies about it.

Students & Educators: *Visit http://www.xbrl.org and read about the Academic Competition *Include XBRL Taxonomy development and testing in your courses. Students won't use paper in the future as the optimal reporting format. *Ask potential employers and School Trustees if they are 'XBRL users'?

Accountants in Public Practice: *Engage your clients and their audit committees on this topic *Ask your software vendors if the next upgrade includes XBRL enablement? *Train your staff and partners on this topic and with relevant tools.

Software Vendors: *XBRL enable your applications. *Communicate with your licensees on this topic and determine additional needs. *Consider the additional feature opportunities for future versions as this information becomes more extensible.

Contributions by Individuals are Key to Our Success

The XBRL consortium would like to express its gratitude to the small group of individuals whose vision, knowledge, and hard work has proven so beneficial to all of the member companies. This relatively small group know what is possible and what it will take to fulfill all of the objectives for XBRL. To those people, we say "THANK YOU." There are many individuals who have made significant contributions. However, we would be remiss if we did not single out Charlie Hoffman, whose early thoughts in this area lead to what we now know as XBRL and whose initial efforts led to the creation of this consortium and it's fundamental mission of changing the business reporting supply chain to the benefit of all consortium participants.

Take a minute to review the Membership information at http://www.xbrl.org and then come join us.

XBRL Steering Committee


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


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Document URL: http://xml.coverpages.org/xbrlUpdate20001002.html