The terminology used in XBRL often overlaps with other terms.
| ·context | The information that allows a fact or set of facts to be understood in relation to other information. Context needs to be identified inside an ·instance document and typically includes time, organizational entity, reporting segment, and scenario – whether the fact is budget, actual, interim, or final. |
| ·DTS | The discoverable ·taxonomy set consists of files that are related, typically as interlocked modules. Both taxonomies and instance documents can refer or import other taxonomies so as to re-use concepts that have been defined elsewhere. A DTS is a mechanism in ·XBRL that facilitates this re-use. |
| ·DWG | The ·XII Domain Working Group. This is a (members only) standing committee that is charged with (1) facilitating the creation and adoption of taxonomy best practice; and (2) gathering business requirements for ·XII. It does this through a range of guidance materials as well as a number of communication and outreach initiatives. Not to be confused with jurisdictional domain committees, which are often (but not always) set up in a ·jurisdiction to manage the creation of a local GAAP ·taxonomy. |
| ·element | The base definition in a ·taxonomy of a single category of facts. |
| ·extension | A ·taxonomy that is developed by an organisation to add corporate-unique concepts or to modify default taxonomy relationship structures. An extension is often used merely to add a concept to those available in a GAAP set of disclosures to take account of the particular circumstances of an organisation. This is generally to allow market differentiation of a particular market participant. However, extensions are also used to modify a base ·taxonomy for the purposes of a particular reporting organization. For instance, a company may choose to use a different label for a standard GAAP ·taxonomy, or to alter the way that a sub-total is calculated, to take account of company-specific circumstance. Most companies involved in reporting to securities regulators will choose to use extensions. |
| ·FRIS | Financial Reporting Instance Standards are a set of guidelines for the preparation of high quality, highly interoperable ·XBRL ·instance documents. The majority of FRIS guidelines can be implemented by way of software that creates instance documents, so is properly regarded as a supporting set of materials. FRIS conformance can be tested by way of a specialist set of conformance suite tests. |
| ·FRTA | Financial Reporting ·taxonomy Architecture. A long title for the ·taxonomy best practices document created largely by the ·DWG. FRTA aims to ensure that taxonomies that are built around the world use ·XBRL in some specific ways. This is in order to improve the interoperability of those taxonomies and to simplify the software development process for tools that need to process financial taxonomies. FRTA only relates to Financial Reporting taxonomies. These best practices are strongly encouraged by way of the ·Taxonomy Recognition Process (TRP). To reach the recognition level of “Approved”, it is necessary for a ·taxonomy to be FRTA conformant. FRTA conformance can be tested by way of a specialist software conformance suite, as well as a range of manual checks. |
| ·IASB | The International Accounting Standards Board. See also ·IASCF. |
| ·IASCF | The International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation. The governing body of the IASB. The IASCF has sponsored a range of IFRS related ·XBRL activity by both volunteers and staff, including the creation of the IFRS ·taxonomy. |
| ·IFRS | International Financial Reporting Standards; see http://www.iasb.org.uk for more information. |
| Instance documents are also called ·XBRL Data Documents, and are sometimes shortened to IDs (this is to be discouraged as “ID” has a special meaning in the ·specification). Instance documents contain one or more sets of ·context information that allows the consistent identification of:
· the organisation(s) that are reporting information · the date(s) for which information is being reported; and the · details of any segments (such as the different divisions that are reporting inside a single organisation) and details of any scenarios (such as “budget” figures, “forecast” figures and “actual” figures) that are being used. Instance documents must also contain one or more unit identifiers that define the units of measure in use: typically currencies, but can also be physical or derived measures such as BrakeHorsePower, Meters and Shares. Finally, and most importantly, instance documents contain a “set of facts” that comprise a set of tags that are used by a ·taxonomy, the data that relate to those tag concepts and the identifiers that place the information in context. |
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| ·ISC | The International Steering Committee of ·XII. The governing body, in effect a board of directors, with membership elected by ·jurisdictions (for Jurisdictional seats) and the ·ISC itself for “at large” representatives. |
| ·jurisdiction | Self-governed, generally country-specific not-for-profit organization, recognised as the peak ·XBRL authority in that area by ·XII by way of vote of the ·ISC. Jurisdictions (for a list see http://www.xbrl.org/jurisdictions.aspx) must agree to the XII branding and intellectual property policies. Jurisdictions bring together a diverse range of organisations, from report preparers through to software vendors, intermediaries, accountants, accounting organizations and official bodies, such as regulators and accounting standards setters. Since some of these organisations compete with each other, it is necessary for a suitable neutrally regarded facilitator to simplify the operation of the jurisdiction. Jurisdictions can be not-for-profit companies, unincorporated bodies, or simply subordinate committees or working groups of the facilitator. Jurisdictions act to promote and facilitate adoption in their area, including by developing relevant country or industry taxonomies. At the time of writing, the ·IASCF was unique in not representing a country. This situation comes about by way of its supra-national characteristics. |
| ·LRR | The Link Role Registry, a publicly accessible database that allows advanced users of XBRL to define new types of relationships between reporting terms [LRR]. |
| ·period | The date or time to which a fact in an ·instance document relates. It can be a point in time (e.g., December 31, 2002) which is referred to as an “instant” but is also known as a “stock” figure amongst some reporting communities (especially statistics). Alternatively a period can be referred to as a “duration” which is a reporting period that extends over a known time (e.g., the 12 month period ending December 31, 2002). Statisticians refer to this second type of period as a “flow”. |
| ·semantics | The meaning of an expression. The semantics of the various parts of ·XBRL itself are defined in the ·specification, but this is unlikely to be of interest to most end-users. Users of ·XBRL can create their own semantics in at least two ways. The creation of taxonomies by defining reporting terms and the way that they relate to each other is the most common way that ·XBRL allows the creation of comprehensive meanings. However, where it is possible to extend the ·XBRL itself (for instance by creating a new type of relationship in the ·LRR) it is necessary to define the meaning of that relationship. |
| ·specification | The technical set of rules that governs the syntax and fundamental semantics of all ·XBRL materials, both the definitions that create ·XBRL dictionaries or taxonomies and the data, or instance documents. This is the main intellectual property of ·XII. |
| ·spec | Shorthand for the ·specification. |
| ·SWG | The ·XII Specification Working Group. This ·XII members-only working group maintains the ·specification and develops foundation-level modules and participates in the development of modelling rule-level documentation. |
| ·syntax | The structure of a language, according to a set of rules. The syntax of ·XBRL is defined by the ·specification, as well as a number of other ·XML specifications, including several important W3C standards: XML Schema, Xlink and Xpath. |
| ·stylesheet | See ·XSLT. |
| ·tag | Another (less precise) term for an ·element. ”Tagging” means to associate appropriate elements with the concepts in a business report. |
| ·taxonomist | A professional ·taxonomy developer, concerned, primarily with the logical organisation of reporting concepts that exist in a particular domain, whether that be at the level of group internal reporting, external corporate reporting, the capture and definition of industry key performance indicia, or an accounting framework promulgated by an accounting standards setter. |
| ·taxonomy | An organised group of ·XBRL definitions that together provide meaning to reporting concepts. Taxonomies are used to define accounting, financial and non-financial reporting terms in a disciplined manner. Taxonomies are often produced by a central group, for instance the jurisdictional efforts to develop the US-GAAP, IFRS, UK-GAAP or Canadian GAAP taxonomies. Taxonomies can equally be developed by a government agency or regulator to define their specific regulatory information needs. Examples include the FDIC, FSA, APRA, Danish Companies and Commerce Authority.
Taxonomies comprise several files. Every taxonomy has a schema document that provides: · a code for each concept that needs to be communicated · a data type (such as monetary, string, Boolean) · some reporting specific information such as whether the time that a fact is to be reported should be measured as an “instant” (a moment in time such as “31 December 2005”) or “duration” (a period in which some activity has been measured, such as the period commencing 1 January 2005 and ending 31 December 2005”); and · sometimes certain accounting specific information such as whether a monetary item should be considered to be a natural credit balance or natural debit balance. Taxonomies also contain several linkbases. Linkbases are organising files that provide various types of information that can be used to define concepts. The usual linkbases are: · a label linkbase that provides a caption or label for each concept, in one or more languages. Special labels for verbose descriptions of a concept can also be defined in this file. · a reference linkbase that provides a link from a concept to authoritative literature that defines it, such as an accounting standard or regulatory standard. · a presentation linkbase that provides a default order for a group of concepts · a calculation linkbase that provides a default way of calculating totals and sub-totals for related concepts that have the same context · a definition linkbase that describes certain special attributes of reporting facts, such as equivalence between two concepts. Shortly, ·XII will publish another type of linkbase specification – a Formula Linkbase that allows sophisticated mathematical and logical operations to be carried out on taxonomy concepts, so as to allow the creation of validation and derivation rules. |
| ·Taxonomy Recognition Process (TRP) | The TRP is a set of policies that are applied by XII around the recognition of taxonomies at two levels:
Acknowledged Requires that the ·taxonomy is ·XBRL valid, is endorsed by the body that has developed, is freely accessible (that is, without royalty payment and without any other restriction), and has been documented in accordance with the requirements set out in the TRP. Acknowledged taxonomies can be in use, or they can be under development on their way to eventual recognition as Approved. Approved Requires that the ·taxonomy be acknowledged and ·FRTA conformant. Approved taxonomies must have been held open for public comment for at least a 45 day period. Additional documentation requirements include the provision of at least 2 sample ·instance documents. |
| ·tuple | A set of related facts that need to be expressed and read together. It can best be thought of as a row in a table. Tuples are defined in taxonomies and used in instance documents for exactly that. |
| ·XBRL | eXtensible Business Reporting Language: The language for defining, producing, exchanging, and disseminating business reports. |
| ·XBRL Compliant | There is no such certification at this time. ·XII has not yet produced any sort of test programme or compliance “Kite mark”. Vendors are able to advise whether or not their tools are able to process the ·specification, ·FRTA or ·FRIS conformance suites, but this is self-certification and is not endorsed by ·XII. |
| ·XII | XBRL International Incorporated. The not-for-profit global consortium, based in New York, that developed and manages the base ·XBRL technology and through its member jurisdictions facilitates the creation of ·XBRL taxonomies. |
| ·XML | eXtensible Markup Language. The foundation for virtually all computer to computer interaction via the Internet. Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). ·XBRL is a based on XML. |
| ·XSLT | Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations. One of the most prevalent technologies used to format and reformat ·XML documents, including ·XBRL. Also called stylesheets. |
Appendix A. ReferencesThe references here are the web addresses of the non-normative HTML versions.
Appendix B. Intellectual Property StatusCopyright © XBRL International 2005. All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to XBRL International or XBRL organizations, except as required to translate it into languages other than English. Members of XBRL International agree to grant certain licenses under the XBRL International Intellectual Property Policy (www.xbrl.org/legal).
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an ”AS IS” basis and XBRL INTERNATIONAL DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
The attention of users of this document is directed to the possibility that compliance with or adoption of XBRL International specifications may require use of an invention covered by patent rights. XBRL International shall not be responsible for identifying patents for which a license may be required by any XBRL International specification, or for conducting legal inquiries into the legal validity or scope of those patents that are brought to its attention. XBRL International specifications are prospective and advisory only. Prospective users are responsible for protecting themselves against liability for infringement of patents. XBRL International takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Members of XBRL International agree to grant certain licenses under the XBRL International Intellectual Property Policy (www.xbrl.org/legal).