European XBRL Reporting Entities handbook
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CEN Workshop Agreement
Status: Working Group Working Draft
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Contents |
Foreword
This document is a working document.
This document has been prepared by CEN/WS XBRL, the secretariat of which is held by NEN.
This document is a working document.
Introduction
Scope
The objective of this CWA is to provide a roll-out package for regulators who wish to use XBRL. More precisely, this CWA consists of two parts:
- i) An XBRL supervisory roll-out guide: this is oriented towards national regulators on how to implement, extend and manage XBRL taxonomies
- ii) An XBRL handbook for declarers: this is a roll-out guide or reference handbook would give a general introduction to XBRL and serve as a help to preparers of XBRL (reporting entities)
The scope of the current document is on the second part of the CWA; the XBRL handbook for declarers. In this general guide to XBRL, the following subjects will be addressed: [DRAFT]
Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
EN xyz:199x, Title of the european standard.
EN ab c:199x, General title of series of parts — Part c: Title of part.
Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply / the terms and definitions given in … and the following apply.
- Term1
- description on text for term1
- Term2
- description on text for term2
XBRL Introduction
Introduction: from unstructured to structured information
Before starting to explain XBRL, we would like to show via an example why the structuring of reported data can be useful. Reported financial data tend to be represented a table format. For example, the COREP Capital Adequacy table looks this:
[Image: Example COREP Reporting table]
Such a representation of information is very human-readable. However, it is not ideal for machine interpretation, as it is not very structured. As a result, the following question comes to mind: How can we structure this information, so that it can be transmitted and interpreted in a consistent way? For the purpose of this example, we’ll focus on the “Eligible Capital” line, which is highlighted in yellow in the above example.
A first step would be to tag the amount of Eligible Capital in a way that it is directly linked to the concept of Eligible Capital:
[Image: Code tag Sample1]
Although this information is already quite structured, some contextual information is missing. Information like the currency of the amount:
[Image: Code tag Sample2]
And finally, the reporting period:
[Image: Code tag Sample3]
The above example shows, in a nutshell, how XBRL allows to structure reporting data.
General Definition of XBRL
XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is a communication standard developed in order to simplify the exchange of business and financial data.
XBRL normalises the format of data (via the use of XML techniques) en the validation of data (via XBRL taxonomies).
[Image: XBRL Language Dagram]
XBRL also provides among others:
- Standard validation rules (mathematical and logical rules)
- The use of label linkbases (which allows multi-lingual taxonomies)
- The possibility to provide rendering
- Standard toolset which allow to work with XBRL
XBRL Components
XML
XML, or eXtensible Markup Language, is a W3C standard which allows to represent structured data in the form of flat text. This representation is both machine readable as human readable.
Simple XML example:
[Image: Code XML Sample 1]
XML languages use elements & attributes in order to structure content. The XML specification defines the syntax of elements, attributes en other structures which can appear in XML documents.
XML Schema (XSD) is a language used for describing the structure of XML documents. XML Schema allows the creation of schema's of for example XML-documents, by which these documents are formally specified and by which they can be validated by XML validators. An XML Schema provides among others what the elements of an XML document are, where they appear, what characteristics must be respected, etc…
An XML document can be correct (well-formed) according to the general XML standard, but also invalid according towards a specific XML Schema.
Further explain XML and components like: XML namespaces, XML schema, XPath, XLink, XPointer
XBRL Taxonomy
Chapter explains the main purpose of XBRL taxonomy (definition of reporting concepts)
Among others, explanation of the following: primary concepts, dimensions, different types of linkbases (presentation, label, definition, …)
XBRL Instance Document
Explain (via a practical example) how an instance document is constructed: namespaces, contexts & units, facts, …
Practical example: from financial report to XBRL instance
Show a (real?) use case which is relevant for the declarer of XBRL: how to go from report & taxonomy to XBRL instance
Bibliography
- [1] :xxx
- [2] :xxx
