XBRL

Understanding the XML Standard for Business Reporting and Finance

WHITE PAPER CONTENTS

XBRL: Understanding the XML standard for Business Reporting 4

Executive Summary 4

What is XBRL? 5

Who benefits? 5

What XBRL is NOT 6

What kinds of issues does XBRL seek to resolve? 6

What Needs to Be In Place? 7

Uses and Applications 8

Case Studies 8 Credit risk management 8 Internal and external reporting 8 Business intelligence (BI) 9 Portfolio support and market data providers 9 Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA) 9

Software and Financial Industry Leaders Partner to Deliver XBRL Solutions 10

XBRL Technology Overview 10

Software AG’s Role 12

Conclusion 13

Resource Recommendations for Further Inquiry 13

Software AG December 2002

3 XBRL: Executive Summary major firms, trade organ- izations, software vendors, financial Understanding the Without a standard for exchanging institutions, investors and govern- XML Standard for data, the financial community has ments. Business Reporting been consistently frustrated by inef- and Finance ficient reporting processes. Cur- XBRL "tags” data with standardized rently, financial data is passed descriptions that enable other appli- This white paper provides an around in a variety of non-inter- cations to understand the meaning overview of the benefits and uses of changeable formats – HTML, and context of specific information the new XML standard for business documents, text within financial documents. The reporting, eXtensible Business files, and Adobe Acrobat files. While result is that data is entered cleanly Reporting Language (XBRL). It also useful for editing, these formats once and then understood consis- offers a more detailed review of the offer no advantage over paper pho- tently and accurately thereafter. implementation and technology tocopies when it comes to sharing There is no need to re-key informa- issues that need to be considered data between applications and users tion or make guesses as to what a when structuring an XBRL strategy on different computing platforms. specific number might represent. as well as case studies for specific So far, attempts at integrating data industries. for financial and business reporting It sounds simple, but it represents a applications have proven frustrating. quantum leap for financial applica- The material discussed will be of Remarkably, 56% of integration per- tions and the people who use them. particular interest to investment and formed in the banking industry has The technology is ideal for Web- finance industry professionals; gov- been accomplished by hard coding enabled applications and everyone ernment, trade and regulatory pro- or changing actual applications who gathers financial information fessionals; finance specialists in cor- rather than abiding by existing stan- over the Internet. porations; IT directors and software dards. Those efforts have tripled the developers. total cost of ownership for financial Currently, banks, investment firms, software solutions. credit companies and such regula- tory bodies as governments and XBRL is a widely accepted data stan- trade associations have the most to dard that solves this dilemma and gain from adopting XBRL. However, enables the exchange of uniform any organization with financial financial information between com- reporting responsibilities can benefit puter systems, software applications immensely from XBRL. Specific case and people. It is based on XML studies that address XBRL usage for (eXtensible ) and credit risk management, internal and Fig. 1: The Financial Reporting Process. is supported worldwide by most external reporting, portfolio support and market data providers, business Traditional: A lot of manual work intelligence tools, and Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA) are included in the latter portion of this white paper. Even though XBRL is in the early phases of adoption, the competitive Financial Analyst, Data Client Controller Manual Input Storage Consultant advantages that come with estab- lishing XBRL and XML capabilities

With XBRL: Properly defined and ready for business automation are clear. The world’s leading gov- ernments, financial institutions,

XBRL accounting firms and corporations are already leveraging the standard to gain impressive returns on invest- Financial Analyst, ment with both internal and external Data Client Central Storage Consultant, Controller applications.

4 It should also be noted that the past addition, XBRL provides broader Who benefits? decade has seen a significant trend contextual information about spe- toward sophisticated business cific data content within financial XBRL benefits all users of the finan- reporting. Large- , medium- and documents. For example, when a cial information supply chain: public small-sized companies and organiza- particular sum of money is specified and private companies, the account- tions have been able to take advan- within a report, XBRL tags may iden- ing profession, governments, regu- tage of low-cost computing power tify that data as "” or "accounts lators, analysts, the investment com- and software to track and analyze all receivable.” It can also indicate munity, capital markets and lenders, kinds of business activity. Compa- timeframes for particular pieces of as well as key third parties such as nies everywhere are beginning to information, like year-to-date sales. software developers and data aggre- understand in great detail how HR, gators. marketing, knowledge-management With XBRL, an organization, an indi- systems, R&D, organizational struc- vidual or another software applica- tures and information architectures tion can easily generate various out- affect their business. Numerous soft- put formats and reports based on a ware packages allow organizations single set of data. to analyze every facet of business operations and their impacts on finance.

So, while this white paper is prima- rily focused on XBRL, it is important XBRL Working Model: Dedicated “filters” supporting different processes to keep the larger XML perspective in mind and understand that many XBRL for G/L Journal XBRL for Financial XBRL for Regulatory Entry Reporting Statements Filings applications will be using XBRL- enabled finance applications to Internal External Investment Processes Business Financial Financial and Lending translate indirect costs and value to Operations Reporting Reporting Anaysis the bottom line.

XBRL for Business XBRL for XBRL for Event Reporting Schedules Tax Filings What is XBRL? Financial Publisher XBRL is a data description language Companies and Data Investors Aggregators that enables the exchange of under- Participants standable, uniform business infor- Trading Management Auditors Regulators Partners mation. It is based on XML and per- mits the automatic exchange and Software Vendors reliable extraction of financial infor- mation across all software formats Fig. 2: The Business Information Supply Chain. and technologies, including the Internet (Fig. 2). XBRL Benefits • Accelerates financial decision- XBRL allows organizations to struc- • Creates more confidence in data making by institutions such as ture information with tags. For through limiting the risk of erro- banks and rating services example, when a piece of data is neous data entry since all • Improves the process of publish- tagged as “,” then XBRL- reports are automatically gener- ing analyst and investor reports enabled applications know that it ated from one single informa- • Information consumers have adheres to a strict definition of rev- tion source unprecedented access, compari- enue and can use it accordingly. The • Minimizes costs by allowing eas- son and analysis capabilities integrity of the information is ier, more automatic composition ensured by standards that have and processing of reports to dif- already been widely accepted. In ferent clients

5 What XBRL is NOT Errors can occur at any step in the about – running a tighter ship, manual financial data aggregation becoming more competitive and XBRL is not a new accounting stan- process. Every time an auditor, tax finding creative ways to improve dard, and it does not require any preparer, regulator, analyst or business. changes to existing accounting stan- investor re-enters information for dards. CFOs still control disclosure, his or her own purposes, the proba- XBRL AND WEB SERVICES but XBRL allows more effective bility of error increases. Those XBRL is ideal for use in seamlessly communication of what is disclosed errors can wreak havoc with the integrated Web services. Web serv- and makes the information more organization. ices are Web-based applications or manageable. It is not a new transac- software components that interact tion protocol. It is merely a standard There are certainly several com- with other Web applications. Since for formatting complex, structured pelling cases for taking XBRL seri- Web services are based on the XML business data like statements and ously at the C level. Automatic com- open standard, they can use XBRL general . XBRL is not a position and processing of reports easily. They essentially "talk” to replacement for previously estab- to different stakeholders minimizes each other, sharing data and calling lished data interchange standards costs significantly by eliminating routines as necessary. This means like EDI. Rather, XBRL enhances time and labor spent manually that Web services are an ideal archi- existing standards by providing entering and rechecking informa- tectural approach to automating extended consistency. tion. Internal information systems business processes across internal can be integrated more quickly and or external business boundaries – by cost effectively with standardized using Internet technologies. What kinds of data formats. The process of pub- issues does XBRL lishing analyst reports for banks and XBRL provides efficient, validated rating services is also faster and transmission of information seek to resolve? more cost effective. Thus, busi- between Web services. Error detec- The commonly practiced methods nesses can receive funding quickly tion, which is built into the XBRL for financial reporting and analysis and efficiently. specification, occurs at the source of tend to be manual, time-consuming the data, rather than at the receiving and costly. Without consistent nam- XBRL helps businesses analyze their party. The data’s accuracy and origin ing and rigid data descriptor frame- financial results with much greater is traceable to one absolute point works, the accuracy and integrity of ease and efficiency. It enables busi- within the information chain. financial information has become a nesses to concentrate on issues like serious concern. Communication forecasting and modeling rather with investors becomes ineffective, than data entry and process tasks. financial statements are created inef- From a C-level perspective, this is ficiently, and reporting and analysis really what financial reporting is all suffer. Data Integration Dilemmas XBRL Advantage BUSINESS ISSUES • Document formats such as • "Live” information. From a high-level business perspec- PDFs, Excel documents and text • Underlying linkages are pre- tive, ineffective communication with files are about as useful as hard served in XBRL. outside users creates a number of copies. • References are preserved. problems. Financial reports that are • One-dimensional Web page data • Different style sheets and "con- difficult to interpret, analyze and cannot be automatically linked trols” can sort, expand, collapse compare can give investors the per- to supporting details, such as and graph information. ception of risk, for example. journal entries. • Companies classify each item to Investors may go elsewhere, to • Spreadsheet data is often exact specifications. unreliable sources, for financial delayed, truncated and inaccu- • Items reach institutional information. rate. investors with no delay and no conversion errors.

6 What Needs to and distributes it intelligently and Several other pieces of the puzzle Be In Place efficiently to applications and serv- need to be in place before an end- ices that are XBRL-enabled. to-end XBRL solution is complete: If architected properly, XBRL plat- • Taxonomies must be developed forms provide a clean middle tier The crucial success factor in any and approved for specific indus- where financial data can be organ- XBRL solution is the capability to tries and geopolitical areas. Coun- ized and utilized by a variety of convert and route financial informa- tries, for instance, need to agree other applications. By XBRL plat- tion derived from existing systems on accounting principles that are forms, we mean a server or data- without impacting them. Non-XBRL supported by XBRL. base that stores and organizes XBRL- data needs to be converted so that • General accounting soft- enabled information so that it can be XBRL-enabled applications can uti- ware vendors need to XBRL- effectively delivered to other appli- lize the information. This is the layer enable their products. cations and document formats. where products like XML servers • Accounting professionals need to (See Figures 3 and 4 below.) and integration solutions are impor- provide XBRL documents as part tant. The best solutions ensure that of their audit procedures. With the right architecture, a central- XBRL-tagged data is kept separate ized XBRL repository handles infor- from RDBMS functionality, keeping With a application for mation from a variety of sources the underlying data pristine. example, the user could export data as XBRL, selecting the appro- priate taxonomy according to Today: Tortuous Information Supply Chain Generally Accepted Accounting Prin- ciples, like US-GAAP, German AP, Text Credit Banks + Application UK GAAP, IAS (International Text Accounting Standard) and so on. + Regulatory EDGAR 10-K Text Filings Read more about taxonomies on Report page 10. GL Statement Once an XBRL document exists, it Report in Print + + can be used in any software pro- Report gram that supports XBRL. Between Statement in PDF applications, this import/export func- + + ? + tion can be automated and transpar- C of A Statement ent to the user. on Web Text Operational Data Store +

Problems that XBRL/XML solve: Fig. 3: Typical, inefficient financial architecture. • As open standards, XBRL and XML allow users to use one The Information Supply Chain with XBRL technology for a variety of appli- cations without being held Printed Financials hostage by one software com-

Accounting pany. System Regulatory • XML-coded data in search- Filings engine databases allows users to clearly specify the exact defi- XBRL Web Site nition and context of their terms. • Common standards simplify Tax Returns Other Sources application integration. of Information • XML automatically codes Bank instructions for each output for- Filings mat (Web, CD-ROM, printer,

Fig. 4: XBRL: handles multiple outputs from multiple data sources. mobile device etc.).

7 Uses and Case Studies The use of XBRL in credit-risk-solu- tion algorithms from noted account- Applications CREDIT RISK MANAGEMENT ing and rating companies would cer- The primary goal of XBRL is to The banking industry has many dis- tainly speed processing for all kinds reduce the cost of information, tinct opportunities to leverage XBRL of credit analysis. accelerate its flow, increase its use- and numerous ways to gain effi- fulness and globalize its form and ciency. When processing loans, for INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL content. example, banks often take 11 to 20 REPORTING days before they can make an in- Multinational corporations with hun- All participants within the financial formed decision about the credit- dreds of subsidiaries are another supply chain can easily interpret and worthiness of a client. In most cases, obvious beneficiary of XBRL stan- use XBRL documents. XBRL brings 90 percent of their time is spent on dards. Despite the attempts of many greater flexibility to investment and mechanics, like verifying docu- organizations to develop "account- credit professionals working with ments, reviewing numbers manually ing manuals” and issue directives XML-enabled applications, financial and double-checking work. for compliance, subsidiaries data warehouses and analytical inevitably deliver information in a tools. The standard lends itself to With XBRL, 10 percent of the time is myriad of forms and formats. Analy- business process automation, where spent on mechanics. The remaining sis applications vary from entity to integrated business rules utilize the 90 percent can be used at the bank’s entity, and even if a standard soft- same data. Investors are able to ana- discretion. They can either use the ware package is used, output for- lyze information without retyping new time savings as a competitive mats commonly vary. Massive data and compare different compa- advantage by providing speedy loan efforts to validate, normalize, correct nies based on commonly accepted approvals, or they can use the time and consolidate information must data formats. Regulators can define to conduct more rigorous risk analy- take place before information can be specific taxonomies that describe sis. Either way, the amount of time reported with any clarity. information and use standard XML spent on "zero-value” tasks like and Internet technologies to receive gathering information and keying it The effects of these practices spill and process that information. are eliminated. over into the realm of external reporting. The inefficiency and inac- By dramatically improving the speed For fast-track approvals, a small curacy involved in gathering finan- with which data is compiled and business might provide a bank with cial information on a large scale prepared, the organizational costs their financial information in XBRL inevitably spreads to every stake- required to prepare, exchange, store and receive a loan approval in cou- holder involved. and publish electronic documents ple of minutes instead of a couple of are greatly reduced. weeks. A similar process would occur for credit approval and lines of credit (Fig. 5). How XBRL will Work

3. XBRL information 5. XBRL data is up- 1. Bank client flows freely across loaded to the the Internet system of record

XBRL XBRL Translator Common Translator XBRL Standard Financial Vocabulary financial Data analyst tools

Client COA* XBRL Bank’s to IAS Repository COA* Taxonomy

2. Client data is 4. XBRL-tagged data * COA: , Fig. 5: Persistent and consistent financial information converted into is mapped into classification system of for reliable statements. XBRL bank’s COA* financial positioning

8 The financial industry, tax agencies, From an internal reporting perspec- TRANSACTION COST ANALYSIS national banks and governments tive, data used in XBRL format is (TCA) spend an inordinate amount of time live and highly accurate, so report- Institutions that deal with massive dealing with regulatory filings that ing processes can be much less amounts of trading volume, like have been generated from convo- rigid. Instead of being locked into a banks, brokers and data providers, luted processes. Reporting forms quarterly scenario where data is are constantly examining their trans- and rules are not integrated, and compiled and verified in a mad rush action costs and searching for ways data is handled manually at every at the end of the quarter, users can to lower them. TCA solution providers, stage in the process. The processes examine live data on a day-to-day such as some banks, offer ways to are not designed for timely, sophisti- basis and have confidence that the increase execution transparency, cated analysis. As the reporting figures are accurate and complete. manage more effectively and moves further away from the corpo- grease the financial information sup- ration, it becomes much less reli- With XBRL documents, it is also ply chain. able. In the end, investors are left much easier to compare financial with suspect information and the results against other data, like his- Banks, for instance, have to deal corporation may miss the opportu- torical performance, competitive re- with approximately 400 different nity to develop capital investment in sults and benchmarks for future goals. mechanisms for completing transac- line with its performance and needs. tions. The effort to reduce the com- BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE plexity of these processes is de- These problems are not relegated to Business intelligence, business per- scribed by the term "straight-through large corporations, either. Govern- formance management and decision processing” (STP). All parties are ment agencies and departments of support tools stand to gain increased interested in attaining STP, which is all kinds run into the same situa- usage, performance and exposure one of the inherent benefits of XML tions, as do banks, investment firms with the adoption of the XBRL stan- and XBRL. and non-profit organizations. dard. With live, accurate information pulsing through the veins of a com- Organizations such as governments, pany, executives and managers banks, investment firms and market across the organization have exten- data providers that depend on infor- sive opportunities to examine their mation feeds from corporations are performance and operations. Analy- in the unenviable position of receiv- sis, modeling, forecasting and, of ing inaccurate information from com- course, rapid reporting are greatly panies. Their job begins with infor- enhanced with XBRL. mation that has already been through all kinds of error-prone processes. PORTFOLIO SUPPORT AND MARKET DATA PROVIDERS XBRL provides for streamlined inter- For all the reasons cited above, port- nal and external reporting processes, folio support and market data become because the initial financial data that much more accurate and much more is passed around from application to efficiently collected. Banks are also application never changes. There is market data providers. Many banks no chance for error from re-keying, develop their own "ticker plants” in and accuracy is consistently vali- house, so there are ample opportu- dated at every hand-off. nities to develop XBRL integration solutions for them.

9 Software and XBRL Technology items. It should be noted that the Financial Industry Overview standards an organization chooses to enforce can pertain to anything. Leaders Partner The beauty of XBRL is that the tech- The BRL stands for Business Report- to Deliver XBRL nology required to XBRL-enable ing Language, so additional meas- Solutions data resides in the middle of the IT urements such as productivity, risk infrastructure. Organizations still uti- and spend management indicators Partnerships between technology lize their existing infrastructure, such can also be easily accounted for. companies and financial industry as back-end relational databases and leaders have already produced front-end applications like Excel. XBRL DOCUMENT viable XBRL solutions. See XBRL is recognized as an investment An XBRL document contains actual www.xbrl.org for a listing of part- or an enhancement that provides business reporting figures, their con- ners and descriptions of their proj- skill protection throughout the IT text and any relevant linkages. The ects. The following is a short list of organization rather than a replace- XBRL data within these documents solutions that already exist or are in ment solution that requires re-engi- are defined by taxonomies. "XBRL- development: neering of systems and retraining of aware” applications can use and users. view the raw XML data which • Reporting and analysis solutions resides in XBRL documents. for multiple organization-wide The following overview presents the uses, as well as for investing pur- key components to successful XBRL XML SCHEMA poses. implementations and the open Even understandable application- • Investment comparisons/investor source technologies that support specific tags within XML documents analysis products. them. Remember, XBRL is a stan- make sense only if they are known • Forecasting and planning applica- dard, not software. So, the “technol- to all the users who are likely to tions. ogy” required to launch an XBRL ini- need them. This is the case when • EDGAR and other governmental tiative is composed of structured user groups agree on certain docu- filing solutions. agreements and software that ment types. They can do so using • Web services for a variety of understands those structures. DTDs (Document Type Definitions) – applications that cater to con- or XML schema definitions – docu- sumers, corporations, govern- TAXONOMIES ment schemas that specify the valid ments and investment firms. Taxonomies provide the rules for tags and the valid structure of a doc- • Existing systems such as ERP, defining XBRL tags. Generally ument class. Even then, well-formed business intelligence, business Accepted Accounting Principles XML documents can still cope with performance management, and (GAAP) is a taxonomy, for example. unknown tags: they are automati- enterprise-wide reporting and It defines agreements about the con- cally identified as such and left unre- analysis software are incorporat- tent and structure of various reports solved, whereby the possibility of ing XBRL. created and maintained by organiza- incorrect interpretation is excluded. tions such as AICPA, the Interna- The architecture is thus very flexible tional Accounting Standards Board, and has been designed bearing in regulators or individual companies. mind that those users and applica- Yet XBRL taxonomies do not stop tions that have access to all informa- there. Taxonomies can also include tion need to be served as well. And private company aspects that refer since the definitions are entered in to and correspond to specific data plain text, not using cryptic control structures and business rules within characters, XML documents remain a singular organization. In either readable by people. Regardless of case, taxonomy establishes agree- the author’s particular DTD or XML ment between different parties schema, all XML-coded documents within a company, industry or geo- can be processed, saved and distrib- graphic area as to the tagging and uted. contextual usage of specific data

10 Error checking or validity checking is These formats include HTML for use Established vendors such as Soft- built into XML documents through in browsers, PDF for use in Adobe ware AG provide native XML data- their Schemas. When you send an Acrobat, RTF for text, SVG for ren- bases that integrate both XML and XML document to another party or dering graphics, and so forth. XML non-XML data. This provides an application, you also send along the can also be transformed into other extensible "XML view” on all document’s Schema. This defines XML documents. needed information, without chang- how the document will be used and ing the data structure (or data interpreted. An eXtensible Stylesheet Language access layers) over and over again. Transformations (XSLT) file is In contrast, relational database ven- In other words, XML Schemas applied to an XML document in dors are developing schemas for define documents in a language that order to transform it. An XSLT converting data to XML within the pertains to their particular usage. processor is also utilized. XSLT files RDBMS, a daunting task. Each Schema is specific to the needs consist of templates that specify of the particular industry or usage. how each node of the source XML So, ideally, XBRL-enabled solutions document should appear in the des- will be built on an XML server plat- XSL, XSLT, AND XPATH tination document. XSLT is an XML- form that performs all the necessary The layout of an XML document is based language whose syntax and integration, conversion, translation not defined in the document itself or semantics are defined by a W3C and routing between the database in its Schema. It is one of the funda- specification. and application layers. mental principles of XML that con- tent should be absolutely separate XSLT uses the XML Path Language from presentation. How a document (XPath) to perform queries on an is represented is defined in a style- XML document in order to specify a sheet that is created with eXtensible particular part of the document. Stylesheet Language (XSL) or possi- bly with Cascading Style Sheets. XML ADVANTAGES OVER RELA- One document can also have several TIONAL DATA STRUCTURES different XSL stylesheets, resulting XML is designed for Internet Proto- in different document presentations. col (IP). In contrast, the binary for- XSL likewise supports a variety of mats and proprietary mechanisms of output media, such as screen dis- relational and object-oriented data play, printouts etc. In addition, XSL prevent them from being easily enables XML documents to be trans- accessible over the Internet. In many lated into HTML documents. Thus, cases, gateway software and addi- terminal devices that understand tional mechanisms are required to HTML but not XML can be sup- access these formats over the Inter- ported as well. XSL specifies how net – and it is usually through a sin- XML documents can be transformed gular transport protocol, such as for display. HTTP only (no e-mail or FTP, for instance). However, with an XML An XML document can be trans- server and the right integration formed via multiple XSL files for dis- tools, non-native XML data can be play on the Web, on a mobile phone, "staged” in a layer between the PDA or into a format for storage. RDBMS and XML applications and XML documents can be transformed services. into a variety of formats in order to be utilized by end-user applications.

11 Software AG’s Role ment, internal-external reporting • Retrieval of XBRL instances for and regulatory filings. Our solutions dynamic publishing (transforming Software AG is one of the primary provide a smooth transition to native XBRL with XSLT to other formats) drivers of XBRL and XML technolo- XBRL without jeopardizing or affect- • WebDAV for collaborating on gies. We make the industry’s leading ing current business operations. The financial data XML server, Tamino, and the Soft- suite for XBRL is based on W3C • Web services (SOAP) for front- ware AG Suite for XBRL helps com- XML standards and offers an open end financial analysis (e.g., Excel) panies build XBRL solutions from framework for plugging in custom and validation of XBRL instances existing IT investments. Hundreds of components and other third-party worldwide customers are already solutions. A global Software AG XML/XBRL using our XML core technology to Competence Center has been estab- process and store XML documents. Software AG’s Suite for XBRL sup- lished to provide state-of-the-art ports the automation of: competence. The primary goal of Simply put, Software AG provides • Non-XML conversion to XML the Competence Center is to transfer the tools and services necessary to using parsers (for text, PDF, MS knowledge to participating organiza- analyze, transform, route and store Word, print files, etc.) tions, offer support for XML/ XBRL XML information – the key to the • XML data transformation to XBRL solutions and continue to build upon entire information exchange infra- format using XSLT the success of the standards. structure (Fig. 6). • Data extraction using adapters (RDBMS, SAP, Oracle Financials XML standards have already The Software AG Suite for XBRL and others) demonstrated significant ROI for delivers the methodology and prac- • XBRL data encryption/decryption numerous technical and business tical tools for implementing and sus- and digital signatures using XML applications. XBRL is simply a busi- taining XBRL initiatives. Project Signature and XML encryption ness extension of the XML standard. management, business and techni- technology Investment returns within the finan- cal consulting, implementation sup- • Validation of XBRL using tax- cial community are already begin- port and tools and training are all onomies and specific business ning to materialize from simple part of the Software AG program. rules implementations. • Storage of XBRL instances and all Software AG’s methodologies are related XML documents such as designed to solve special issues linkbases and stylesheets using within the financial information sup- Tamino XML Server ply chain, like credit risk manage-

Client A “Standard” reports, Corporate / Bank text, other formats Format ERP System Converter XBRL XBRL Documents Client B XBRL Documents Firewall Suite for ERP System XBRL Adapter XBRL

Client C XBRL Documents HTML Financial Manual ERP System XBRL report input Form (print)

Fig. 6: An extensible architecture: all kinds of formats can be embedded into the XBRL system

12 Conclusion Resource Recom- mendations for With this analysis in mind, what is the next step for IT managers whose Further Inquiry organizations wish to explore XBRL • www.xbrl.org further? For starters, you can investi- • http://web.bryant.edu/~xbrl/ gate your financial and ERP software index. applications to find out if they are • www.zapthink.com XBRL-enabled. Also, check with ven- • www.softwareag.com dors to see if plans are going for- • http://www.microsoft.com/ ward for future versions that will msft/xbrlinfo.htm include support for XBRL docu- • http://www.ey.com/global/ ments. Then, begin to survey inter- content.nsf/International/Issues_ nal business processes and identify &_Perspectives_-_Web-Enabled_ which business reporting areas Business_Reporting might benefit from XBRL. Extend the • www.ey.com -- Search for term survey to include external processes "XBRL” and key partners, and then start to • www.pwcglobal.com -- Search for consider pilot programs for XBRL- term "XBRL” enabling key processes within your organization. Additional information on Software AG’s XBRL offering can be obtained at Of course, plan on adding to your your local Software AG subsidiary XBRL background by reading up on or via e-mail at: the latest developments. We have [email protected] compiled a list of resources below.

13 14 For more information on EntireX Integration Server: http://www.softwareag.com/entirex

For hands-on experience: http://www.softwareag.com/entirex/download

For more information on Tamino XML Server: http://www.softwareag.com/tamino Software AG Corporate Headquarters Tamino Community: Uhlandstraße 12 http://www.softwareag.com/developer 64297 Darmstadt/Germany Tel: +49-61 51-92-0 To download the XML Starter Kit: Fax: +49-61 51-92-11 91

http://www.xmlstarterkit.com www.softwareag.com XBRL/WP1E0103 001

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