BP - BLOG 3

BP Blog 3

There are many benefits to be reaped from using XBRL, however the big three are:
1.Better
2.Cheaper
3. Faster

XBLR will allow your company to produce better documents, with more effective use. Documents become accessible to parties involved with your companies financial statements. Information will become more easy to navigate due to that fact of standardization. It also improves the ability to contrast and compare your companies financial documents with prior years and other companies.

XBLR is cheaper in the long-run as less effort is needed to prepare the financial documents. There is also less of a need to re-format documents due to the standardization of the reports.

XBLR is faster as reports can be compiled more quickly and effectively than without XBLR. Using XBLR also enables readers and analysers of the documents to spend less time analyse the data generated from the reports.

Although many financial documents are being viewed electronically, they still are not interactive. Meaning they are just the same as a photo of the financial statements on the computer. With XBRL the online financial statements may become interactive for the users. In others word users may use their computers to search for data, perform calculations, and read the data.

XBRL can be used for three major purposes:
1.Investor and Analysis Reporting
2.Borrowers Reporting Quarterly on Financial Information 3.Regulatory Reporting

Investors and analyst will find this method of reporting beneficial as they will not have to sort through as much “paper” (PDF files), and instead will be able to weed through various financial statements, allowing their computers to conduct a large amount of work.

Companies that use XBRL to submit their financial data quickly to their financial institutions. Saving time in converting their data into Excel spreadsheets.

On regulatory reporting XBRL saves time as employees do not have to re-key information. Another benefit is due to its standardized format which will enable companies to send in regulatory information to the correct agencies quickly and efficiently.

XBRL does not come in an off –the-shelf- implementation package as XBRL is used differently around the world. However should you decide that this is the right option for your company you may contact a representative in your area. This representative will help you implement, provide support, and guidance while creating XBRL.

To help accountants stay on-top of the latest news regarding XBRL they may join a mail group that will keep them up-to-date of the current happenings in XBRL at http://www.xbrl.org/MainContacts/. They may also join discussion groups and find out about conferences being offered in their area at http://www.iasb.org/xbrl/events.html.

Websites used:
http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/International/XBRL-How_Can_It_Be_Used

http://www.iasb.org/xbrl/events.html

http://www.xbrl.org/Home/