XBRL International Inc. (XII) announced today that it had constituted its Best Practices Board (BPB), a body established to provide guidance and materials reflecting the best practices developed during implementations of XBRL around the world. It is expected that this will help facilitate and accelerate adoption of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) globally.
Walter Hamscher (Standard Advantage, USA) has been appointed as the interim Chair of the Board. A nomination process for permanent Chair will be conducted approximately 60 days following the first meeting of the Board. Appointed members include Ignacio "Nacho" Boixo (Banco de España, Spain), Ralf Frank (German Society of Investment Professionals, Germany), Makoto Koizumi (Fujitsu, Japan), Diane Mueller (JustSystems, Canada/Japan), Michele Romanelli (Banca d´Italia, Italy), Paul Sappington (EDGAR Online, USA), and Mark Schnitzer (MSN News Analysis, USA). The Board will succeed an interim board which was set up earlier this year, when XII announced its intention to create the BPB.
The consortium announcement emphasised that the creation of the Board did not indicate any change in the basic XBRL specification and related material. The Best Practices Board seeks to enhance adoption of XBRL through development of support materials and implementation guidance.
The decision to set up the Board follows a review by the XBRL International Steering Committee (ISC) of the need for XII to facilitate the sharing of learning from actual implementations of the standard. This coincides with moves in a number of countries to adopt XBRL, an electronic language which offers major benefits for the creation, communication and analysis of financial and other business reports.
The board will charter Working Groups open to all XII members, including:
"¢ Software Interoperability
"¢ Project Management
"¢ Taxonomy Architecture
"¢ Reporting Processes
Members of the Board include regulatory reporting and financial analysis experts, and members with experience in software and program management. The Board is accountable to the ISC.
About XBRL
XBRL enables computer–readable tags to be applied to individual items of data in business reports, transforming them from simple blocks of text into information which can be understood and processed automatically by computer software. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy to all those involved in preparing, analysing or communicating business information.
It can be used to express a wide range of reports and disclosures including financial statements, internal management information, regulatory returns, statistical reports, and credit filings.
The language is being developed and promoted by an international non–profit consortium of some 500 major companies, organisations and government agencies. Members cover all segments of the business supply chain.
XBRL is an open standard, free of licence fees.
More information, including the full text of the announcement of the XBRL International Best Practices Board, can be found on the XBRL website at www.xbrl.org.