1. financial metrics
XBRL (EXTENSIBLE BUSINESS REPORTING
LANGUAGE): ITS IMPACT ON THE CI
COMMUNITY
LIV WATSON, EDGAR Online, KIRBY LUNGER, Painted Word Inc. and
TOM TAULLI, EDGAR Online
Are you one of the 64% of US standards language in which to describe Ultimately, XBRL enhances the
companies experimenting with a financial facts and concepts. The XBRL usability and transparency of financial
performance management (scorecard) standard is a member of the family of information reported under existing
system (Institute of Management XML (eXtensible Markup Language) accounting standards. It simplifies
Accountants, 2002)? If you are, you derivative languages that creates a data disclosure, and allows companies to
have likely learned that a critical exchange standard. XML allows for communicate financial information
component of these methodologies is increased interoperability among more readily via the internet and
financial metrics. In performance systems and enhanced integration between applications.
measurement methodologies such as the among internet-based applications.
balanced scorecard or performance XBRL adds additional information to
prism, these financial measures are electronic financial and business HOW XBRL COULD CHANGE
linked to all of the other metrics in the reporting documents by including both YOUR LIFE: A HYPOTHETICAL
scorecard, such as employee and content ($10,000) and structural BUSINESS CASE
customer perspectives. context ($10,000=net income for Q1/ Imagine you are responsible for a
Many companies are asking 2003) information within the data competitive scorecard initiative at your
competitive intelligence professionals to items. company. Your team determines
make these measurements available in This standard offers tremendous financial metrics for tracking the
near real-time via the internet or the productivity advantages to financial company’s performance against your
company’s intranet in a dashboard institutions, regulatory agencies and competitors. You need to track revenue
format. These initiatives usually entail others in the competitive intelligence growth and mix, pricing, cost
gathering data in disparate formats community. It maintains a process reduction, and utilization of fixed
from several different databases, much where numbers and their textual assets. These measurements are required
manual re-work, and fact checking. explanations can be tracked, analyzed, to be delivered via the internet.
A new industry standard, the and distributed through any report To provide this information to
eXtensible Business Reporting without changing format or re-keying corporate decision-makers, you will
Language (XBRL), radically changes data. need to pull information from databases
and greatly enhances
competitive intelligence
professionals’ ability to STEP ONE STEP TWO STEP THREE STEP FOUR STEP FIVE STEP SIX
track and analyze these Working group Data is manually Data is manually Working group Data is delivered or Data is released to
financial performance determines
financial metrics and
located and pulled
from proprietary
validated and
re-entered into
meets several times
to manually
manually keyed into
analytic or
corporate decision-
makers via internet
drivers by providing one source systems source systems spreadsheets to
provide a basis
validate data scorecard system
uniform format for the for comparison
publishing, exchange, and
Company Data Sources
analysis of financial data. • General Ledger
• Fixed Assets
• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
WHAT IS XBRL?
The purpose of
XBRL is to enhance the
Third Party Data
flow of financial and • Financial Statements
business information Tracking Vendors
• Revenue Projections
through the creation of a Tracking Vendors
globally useful data
Figure 1: Competitive Scorecard
Volume 6 • Number 3 • May-June 2003 47

2. financial metrics
exchange while reducing related costs.
STEP ONE STEP TWO STEP THREE STEP FOUR The beneficiaries of XBRL include all
Working group Data is located Data is sent Data is released to
members of the financial statement
determines and pulled using XBRL to corporate decision- information supply and analysis chain,
financial metrics and from source systems analytic or makers via Internet
source systems
from preparers and distributors to
scorecard systems
without any aggregators and, most importantly, end
manual intervention users such as competitive intelligence
professionals. This standard provides a
Company Data Sources very rich platform for the increased use
• General Ledger
• Fixed Assets XBRL of advanced analytics for competitive
• Accounts Receivable analysis.
• Accounts Payable
Liv A. Watson is director of XBRL
(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)
Third Party Data for EDGAR Online Inc. She has
• Financial Statements
Tracking Vendors XBRL
provided her expertise to converting
• Revenue Projections EDGAR Online’s SEC report database
Tracking Vendors
into XBRL spec II compliant data. This
XBRL repository delivers financial
information reported on SEC EDGAR
Figure 2: XBRL’s Effect
filings for all publicly traded US
within the company and from third- analytics application you choose and companies. Liv is a founding member of
party information vendors. You will published over the internet to corporate the XBRL International Consortium. She
need information from your company, decision-makers. has published several XBRL related
your key competitors and the industry Major improvements include time articles for international journals. She is
sector averages. and cost savings through reducing currently the chairman of the XBRL
As demonstrated in Figure 1, this manual data entry. Data accuracy Financial Supply Chain and the co-chair
information is not easily accessible in a improves through less extrapolation of the XBRL Research Committee. Liv
pre-XBRL world. Your team will most around what constitutes an apples to can be reached at lwatson@edgar-
likely spend hours, days, or weeks apples data comparison. The result is online.com
manually keying in or sourcing data that corporate decision-makers can
from several proprietary systems. This more quickly access accurate
data will then have to be checked for information on market conditions and Kirby Lunger oversees business
data entry errors and re-keyed to ensure make better strategic decisions. development for the financial services
competitive comparison within your practice at Painted Word, a management
industry. After this evaluation, your consulting and system integration
team will then have to create a process CONCLUSIONS company based in Cambridge, MA that
to feed this information into an eXtensible Business Markup offers services focused on the business
analytics or scorecard system that will Language (XBRL) is a powerful intelligence and corporate performance
provide these financial metrics over the mechanism to exchange financial and management industry. She can be reached
internet to corporate decision-makers. business reporting data. It is an ideal at kirby_lunger@paintedword.com.
Figure 2 shows the major changes solution for transferring structured
that XBRL brings to this competitive financial and business reporting data
scorecard project. Your team will still from server-to-client, server-to-server or
have to identify key financial application-to-application. XBRL takes Tom Taulli is an EDGAR Online
information sources. However, now the concept of democratization of analyst and can be reached at
these sources provide a uniform apples financial and business reporting data to tom@taulli.com.
to apples financial dataset for your the next level. For more information about
company and its competitors. This XBRL, like other emerging open- XBRL please visit: www.edgar-
information can then be delivered architecture technologies, increases the online.com/xbrl/
automatically to whatever scorecard or overall efficiency of information
48 Competitive Intelligence Magazine