Exchanging business reporting information with XBRL

Businesses face many challenges, including more demanding investor expectations, new regulatory requirements, and increasing reliance on Internet-based technology. 
 

The financial market is calling for more communication at greater speed, and more transparency in corporate reporting. Much of the attention has been focused on what information is reported, but the delivery of this information is equally important.

The limitations of traditional reporting

The information provided by traditional reporting is often too little too late to be useful to investors, and frequently comes in non-convertible or non-reusable formats. Investors therefore turn to second-hand sources and conduct their own investigations. One of the major consequences of this is that companies are missing out on valuable opportunities to provide accurate and reliable information.  

Enter XBRL – your key benefits

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)1 is an Internet language, which offers you key benefits by combining technology and reporting expertise. This enables faster, better and cheaper preparation and use of the information needed by management and stakeholders.

XBRL dramatically enhances the reliability and speed of access to financial information. All participants in the corporate reporting supply chain can benefit from the use of XBRL:

• Companies:
  XBRL increases the speed of preparation of financial data and statements, and hence the efficiency of business decisions
• Analysts, investors and regulators:
  XBRL allows better distribution and usability of existing financial statement information. It also speeds up analysis time and makes information retrieval easier. Finally, financial information can be tailored to suit specific analysis and regulatory requirements
• Financial publishers and data aggregators:
  XBRL enables a substantial reduction in the costs of collecting and aggregating data, while also streamlining the information supply chains

The benefits of integrating XBRL with PwC:

PwC can support you in integrating XBRL products seamlessly in your current business processes and systems. We can therefore help you create key benefits such as:

• faster and more efficient consolidation,
• faster and more efficient management information systems,
• providing better information for your stakeholders.

1 XBRL was conceived through the efforts of more than 160 global software, accounting and regulatory informediaries and finance companies (www.XBRL.org) from around the world. PwC is one of the co-founder of the XBRL group.