• FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • LOG IN
  • SIGN UP FOR FREE

Resourceful Finance Pro

  • FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Payroll
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Finance Technology
  • Sales & Use Tax
  • More
    • Employment Law
    • Strategy
    • Policy and Culture
    • Fraud
    • Budgeting and Forecasting
    • Banking
    • Staff Management
    • Cost Control
  • Accounting
1 minute read

A glossary of must-know XBRL terms

Jennifer Azara
by Jennifer Azara
May 22, 2008
  • SHARE ON

The thought of tagging your company’s financial statements may seem remote if you’re a private company. It may not be so far off after all.

The push for XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) technology standard is gaining momentum. The latest: SEC just released a series of XBRL US GAAP taxonomies to help public companies with their tagging and preparing of financial statements and other reporting duties.

You don’t want to sound the alarms yet. But finance execs in all industries and of all sizes may want to start getting their staffers used to the idea.

Get staffers used to the lingo

A great way to do that? With this glossary of key terms, courtesy of the folks at XBRL, Inc.:

XBRL: an XML-based technology standard that improves the way information is created, processed, distributed and analyzed by using “tags” that package info such as definitions, labels, references and time period around individual numbers or text.

Taxonomy: a dictionary of terms used to describe a particular reporting situation such as the XBRL US GAAP line items which include terms such as net income, EPS, cash, etc. Each term has specific attributes that help define it including label and definition and possibly references.

Tags: individual elements within a taxonomy, e.g., net income.

Dimension: a tool in the XBRL standard that allows preparers to leverage XBRL tags to create simple tables and more complex pivot-style tables within financial statements, e.g., to define segment data.

Extension: a company-defined line item that isn’t available in the current taxonomy. If you have a very unique reporting situation that isn’t available in the taxonomy terms, you can create new custom terms.

Instance document: an XBRL-enabled document. For example, an income statement from your company.

Jennifer Azara
Jennifer Azara
Jennifer has covered business and finance for more than 24 years. She has written for CFOs, credit and collections professionals and accounts payable practitioners and has spoken at industry conferences on sales and use tax compliance.

Get the

Resourceful Finance Pro Logo

Newsletter

With Resourceful Finance Pro arriving in your inbox, you will never miss critical stories on accounting, benefits, payroll & employment law strategies.

  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Resourceful Finance Pro Logo
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • WRITE FOR US
  • ADVERTISE WITH US

Resourceful Finance Pro, part of the SuccessFuel Network, provides the latest Finance and employment law news for Finance professionals in the trenches of small-to-medium-sized businesses. Rather than simply regurgitating the day's headlines, Resourceful Finance Pro delivers actionable insights, helping Finance execs understand what Finance trends mean to their business.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Copyright © 2022 SuccessFuel

WELCOME BACK!

Enter your username and password below to log in

Forget Your Username or Password?

Reset Password

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Log In

During your free trial, you can cancel at any time with a single click on your “Account” page.  It’s that easy.

preloader