The document summarizes a presentation about eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) given by Liv Watson from XBRL International. XBRL is a specification that builds on XML to allow for structuring of financial data sets and describing relationships between business concepts. It aims to increase efficiency, transparency and comparability in financial reporting. While XBRL adoption is growing, challenges remain regarding modeling financial information in XBRL taxonomies. Liv Watson has over 25 years of experience in bridging technology, accounting and business reporting and is a leader in the XBRL community.

1. Semantics in Finance
December 8th, 2011 - 11am EST
Presented by:
Liv Watson
Chief Product Officers, XBRL International, Inc.

2. About Extensible Business Reporting
(XBRL) International What is XBRL.
• XBRL International is a not-for- • XBRL Specification
profit consortium of over 600 • Taxonomies (developed by the
companies and agencies worldwide market place)
working together to build the XBRL
technology standard and promote
and support its adoption.
• XBRL builds on top of the
internationally-accepted eXtensible
Markup Language (XML)
specification allowing for
structuring data sets.
• XBRL provides (through an XLink
language specification) an ability to
describe relationships between
business concepts appearing in
business reports.
www.xbrl.org

3. Business Reporting Process and Participant Stakeholders
Processes XBRL
< CSR & ESG Data > XBRL
Financial Statements
Suppliers & Subsidiaries GL, the Journal Taxonomy and
and Non-Financial
Non-Financial XBRL Data
Integrated Reporting
Internal External Investment,
Business Economic
Business Business Lending,
Operations Policymaking
Reporting Reporting Regulation
< Financial Data >
Participant Stakeholders
Financial
NGOs, Community Groups,
Publishers Central
Companies Investors
and Data Banks
Associations
Aggregators
Trading Management Auditors Regulators
Partners Accountants
Software Vendors
Source: XBRL International, Inc.

4. XBRL Adoption
Source http://www.xbrlplanet.org/

5. “The adoption of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) for financial reporting
holds great promise as a source of efficiency, transparency, and comparability in the delivery
of financial information.”

6. Challenges of XBRL

7. Modeling and XBRL Source:
www.xbrl.org/sites/xbrl.org/files/i
mce/XBRL2010Initiatives.pdf
www.xbrl.org

9. Call to Action!
http://xbrl.org/Specification/abstractmodel-primary/PWD-2011-10-19/abstractmodel-primary-PWD-2011-10-19.html

10. Liv Apneseth Watson
Chief Product Officer and Founder, XBRL International. Inc.
. Member of the Board of Directors, MediaTenor
Liv has over 25 years of experience, in finding Member of the Board of Directors, Institute of
innovative ways to bring together Management Accountants (IMA)
technology, accounting and financial and business Member of IFRS Foundation XBRL Advisory Council
reporting. Vice Chair of the Institute of Management Accountants
Working globally with leading market XBRL Working Group
regulators, accounting associations and Founding member of the XBRL International Steering
institutions, Ms. Watson has traveled to over 80 Committee Member
countries presented XBRL to a wide range of audiences
from international standards bodies to Fortune 1000 Past Vice Chair of XBRL International Membership Working
companies and speaks with authority about its Group
benefits, potential applications, and broad adoption. Past Vice Chair of XBRL International, Inc.
Liv authored one of IMA's most successful CPE courses Past Chair of the XBRL US Adoption Committee
"Accounting System Technology for the 21st Century". Past Vice Chair of the XBRL US Jurisdiction
She has also published several articles for international Advisory Board Member – University of Southern Indiana
publications and journals including Harvard Business Advisory Board Member – University of Albany, New York
Review, Strategic Finance. She has also writes a Advisory Board Member - International Journal of
monthly column of financial and business reporting Disclosure and Governance Editorial
trends for CPA2Biz.
She is the co‐author and contributor author to several
of books including “XBRL for Dummies” and
Governance, Risk, and Compliance Handbook
published by Wiley.