XBRL and Oracle
Introduction to XBRL
XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is changing business reporting around the world. It provides many benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information and offers opportunities for cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability in the use of business and financial data.
XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is one of a family of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) languages which is becoming a standard means of communicating information both between businesses and on the internet.
XML is an open standards set of rules for creating structured documents electronically. The design goals of XML are to emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability over the Internet. Beginning in 1996, XML was compiled by a working group of eleven members including representatives from Sun Microsystems, Textuality, Netscape, Microsoft, University of Illinois, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Texcel, INSO, HP, ISOGEN, ArborText, NCSA, Muzmo and Grif, Fuji Xerox Information Systems, Adobe, Vignette, SoftQuad, DataChannel)
XBRL began in 1998, and continues to be developed by XBRL International, an international non-profit consortium of approximately 450 major companies, organizations and government agencies (including Oracle | Hyperion, Sun Microsystems, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, HP, Microsoft). It also is an open standard and free of license fees. XBRL is already being put to practical use in a number of countries and implementations are growing rapidly around the world.
A key component in the development of XML came in 2001, when Hyperion and Microsoft published the XML for Analysis specification, allowing open access to multidimensional databases from any platform.
XBRL has been developed with a view to becoming the standard information format for expressing business information. XBRL tags data with standardized descriptions (e.g. revenue, inventory, cash) that enable that information to be used with many systems for a wide range purposes. These standard codes can be obtained from a taxonomy, or inventory of available tags with common definitions. Each reporting jurisdiction will devise its own taxonomy to reflect specific reporting applications and regional accounting standards (i.e. IFRS, US GAAP, Canadian GAAP). Logically, there is a limit to which standards can be achieved, so preparers may need to resort to extensions, or custom tags, to capture the unique aspects of their industry or type of business. The result is that data is entered only once and then understood consistently and accurately thereafter.
Inline XBRL
Inline XBRL (iXBRL) is a standard for embedding XBRL fragments into an HTML document. It was created to avoid the need to create visual renderings of XBRL instance documents. The objective is to provide documents which can be viewed in a browser while making use of XBRL tags which can be processed automatically by consuming applications. Inline XBRL satisfies the need to work in a “human readable” document while utilizing the “computer readable” XBRL standard.
In April 2010, the Inline XBRL (Rendering) Specification was approved as a recommendation by the XBRL International Standards Board and the International Steering Committee.
Inline XBRL
In 2005, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched its XBRL Voluntary Filing Program. Approximately fifty companies, representing more than $1 trillion of market value, have joined the SEC’s test group and have agreed to voluntarily submit reports.
In early 2007, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) launched an XBRL voluntary filing program. Reporting issuers participating in the voluntary program were able to file financial statements in XBRL format beginning in May 2007. The results of the voluntary program will be used to gain practical knowledge and experience with XBRL and will help in learning both the functionality and challenges involved in using XBRL filings. After gaining knowledge and experience through the voluntary program, further decisions regarding mandatory XBRL filings will be made.
In December 2008, the SEC mandated XBRL’s use by large public companies and mutual funds for reporting financial statements beginning in July 2009, and all public companies must comply by June 2011.
The FDIC and European Union Central Banks, with Basel II (standards for minimum capital requirements for banking organizations), have committed to an XBRL reporting standard.
Other regulators around the world, including the Australian Taxation Office, Chinese Securities Regulation Commission, Dutch Tax Authority, UK Financial Services Authority and Bank of Japan are also adopting XBRL-enabled processes and systems to collect, aggregate, validate and use information.
XBRL Benefits
The benefits of adopting an XBRL reporting process versus current reporting practices are:
- Reduced preparation time and cost through automated data collection.
- Increased confidence in data by limiting the risk of erroneous data entry.
- Enhanced analytical capabilities.
- Accelerated financial decision making.
- Broader information availability.
- Adaptability to changing reporting requirements.
- Increased transparency.
Oracle | Hyperion Solution
Oracle’s Hyperion EPM applications have long supported XBRL as a basic output format via Oracle’s Hyperion Financial Reporting (HFR). HFR offers XBRL Manager - a feature that uses XBRL to convert data into a standard format that can be read and processed automatically by a wide range of financial software. Currently, HFR does not provide rich validation capabilities.
Features of HFR XBRL Manager:
- Download XBRL taxonomies directly into HFR.
- Update and manage XBRL schemas.
- Define XBRL contexts and units for a report.
- Export reports as instance documents, by attaching XBRL metadata.
- Create instance documents using HFM, Hyperion Planning, or Essbase data sources.
Today’s Oracle Hyperion Recommended Solution
In April 2010, Oracle | Hyperion Disclosure Management (DM) was released. DM is a complete XBRL creation and management solution, built on UBmatrix technology, and “demystifies” the creation of XBRL documents and features deep integration with the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) System including Hyperion Financial Reporting (HFR), Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) or Hyperion Planning (HP). UBmatrix Inc. is the leading provider of XBRL-based software solutions for global organizations and enterprises. The UBmatrix technology helps to provide a much deeper level of XBRL functionality.
DM allows organizations to centralize and effectively manage the development of XBRL submissions now required by many regulatory bodies. DM enables users to graphically perform XBRL tagging at several levels – within Microsoft Office, within EPM System reports or in the datasource metadata. The solution lets users modify or extend taxonomies before the mapping process as well as support multiple taxonomies. XBRL instance documents can also be created and validated before submission.
DM features include:
- A taxonomy extension and management tool for customizing taxonomies.
- The ability to load and map any XBRL taxonomy.
- An XBRL validation tool that will check the XBRL calculations against the calculations from Oracle’s EPM applications and identify any errors.
- A drag and drop feature for tagging new accounts.
- Tagging at the application metadata level or report level. When XBRL tags are created at the metadata level (i.e. application account level) the tags become automatically available in any new report.
DM’s common foundation and tight integration with the Oracle EPM system reduces the total cost of ownership by providing a single point of maintenance - a unique feature that point solutions and non-integrated EPM suites cannot match.
Oracle | Hyperion Disclosure Management Screen Shot:
For a full listing of software tools provided by XBRL International and other sources for instance document creation, taxonomy creation and XBRL Validation, see the Table “XBRL Software Tools” at the end of this document.
Summary and Next Steps
In summary, XBRL provides many benefits to an organization in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It also offers opportunities for cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability in the use of business and financial data.
For those organizations wishing to explore XBRL further, here are the suggested next steps:
- Investigate your performance management, financial and ERP software applications to find out if they support XBRL.
- Contact those software application vendors to see what their plans are for future versions regarding XBRL support.
- Solicit input and survey internal business processes in order to identify potential business reporting areas that may benefit from XBRL.
- Solicit input and survey external processes and key partners requirements.
- Consider pilot programs for XBRL enabling key internal processes.
- Keep up to date on the latest XBRL developments.
TGG’s Project Methodology - The Solution Workbench - contains templates and tools to address our client’s XBRL requirements.
To learn more about XBRL, and how TGG can help you meet your XBRL needs, contact Dean Wilson at dean@goalgetters.com
| Instance Document Creation | Taxonomy Creation | XBRL Validation | Oracle | Hyperion Notes | |
| Altova MissionKit | Supports Oracle DB | |||
| Blast Radius (XMetal) | ||||
| CaseWare International | ||||
| CompSci Resources, LLC (XtensibleData.com) | ||||
| CompSci Resources, LLC (XtensibleData.com) | ||||
| Creative Solutions | ||||
| CoreFiling | ||||
| Coyote Reporting | ||||
| DynAccSys (Xabra Tools) | ||||
| Edicom | Compatible with various management systems. | |||
| Fujitsu (Interstage XW and family of products) | Can be used with other common databases and Systems. |
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| J2R (Batavia) | ||||
| Hitachi Systems and Services (XiRUTE) | ||||
| Microsoft (FRx) | Compatible with various systems and databases. | |||
| NeoClarus | Oracle is a Technology Partner. Extracts financial data from any source (Oracle, SAP, Excel) | |||
| Reporting Standard S.L. | ||||
| Rivet Software | ||||
| Savanet (Product Suite) | ||||
| Semansys Technologies | Can be used with various business systems. | |||
| Snappy Reports | Excel, HTML or data from an accounting or financial system. | |||
| UBmatrix | Fully compatible with Oracle | Hyperion EPM |
