XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language)

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard computer language for the electronic communication of business and financial data. The concept is to uniformly identify and tag specific data items within financial documents to facilitate and improve analysis, reduce errors, and ultimately reduce costs for companies as well.

The XBRL standard is being developed by XBRL International, an international non-profit consortium, and is being adopted by countries and jurisdictions around the world. In the U.S., the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is undertaking a "21st Century Disclosure Initiative", which will include requiring public companies to add XBRL tags to their financial filings.

XBRL International and XBRL U.S. also offer education and training, as well as a wealth of quick information, informative reports and links to other XBRL-related information on their website.

While accounting and finance students will likely see the most immediate impact of these changes, XBRL will also bring changes important to all business students, researchers, and users of financial data.