Written by Bob Schneider Posted March 9, 2007

I recently searched at both Google and Amazon for “XBRL for Dummies”. There’s no such book. You would think if there’s enough demand for a Cockatiels for Dummies and a Koi for Dummies, there might be room in the Dummies catalog for interactive data too.

I don’t want to demean the Dummies imprint. Contrary to the gut feel of most people in the book business, readers didn’t find the Dummies title demeaning; in fact, they embraced it. The books have performed a wonderful service in getting readers to peek into topics they may have been too scared to otherwise approach. Moreover, like everyone else, authors follow the money; as the Dummies brand has gained popularity, they’ve attracted some excellent writers, including those in computer fields.

And there have also been good books from the various Dummies imitators. But I didn’t locate any books called, for example, XBRL for Cretins either. It’s possible there’s some similar, sleeper title — which, lacking a Dummies-type imprimatur, simply hasn’t received the recognition it deserves — but I haven’t seen it.

Regardless, XBRL has reached a level of prominence and importance that it demands more than one introductory title, since different authors bring different strengths, interests, and experience to their work.

Books are a joy to write (if they’re not, you shouldn’t be doing it); but they take their toll on pocketbook and personal life. Since I have no desire to write an XBRL for Dummies-type book, I gladly offer this initial, skeletal outline as “open source” for any enterprising authors to adopt, cherry pick, or ignore as they see fit.

Chapter 1 Introduction
(a) In the beginning (Charles Hoffman, AICPA roles)
(b) Importance of XBRL International (consortium of organizations and agencies in many countries)
(c) Why the business environment makes XBRL so exciting (globalization of production, capital markets, and M&A; worldwide push to standardize financial reporting)
(d) Why the public sector wants XBRL (meet increased regulatory and compliance burdens; normalized data for numerous reporting requirements)
(e) Current status (general overview of current state and trends of XBRL adoption)

Chapter 2 What is XBRL?
(a) Part of XML family of languages
(b) What is tagged data; why it’s so useful (provides meaning and context)
(c) Key definitions (taxonomy, instance document)
(d) General, nontechnical description and overview (collaborative effort to create international data standard; creation of specifications; development of taxonomies; software development; implementations in government and industry)

Chapter 3 Benefits and Costs
(a) Introductory case study (eg, Call Reports at FDIC)
(b) Enumerate benefits (royalty-free, facilitates internal and external information exchange, eliminate re-keying, identify errors, greatly improved search and retrieval, platform agnostic, real time delivery, eliminates language barriers)
(c) Enumerate costs (capital outlays, complexity, problems in taxonomy development, shortages in trained personnel)

Chapter 4 XBRL Around the World
(a) XBRL as a truly international data standard: US lags, not leads
(b) Country examples (eg, public company filings in China; Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan; developments in Spain, Netherlands, rest of EU; Africa and Oceania too)
(c) Use by international regulatory bodies (Basel II reporting)

Chapter 5 XBRL for Financial Reporting
(a) Role of SEC (financial statement and other filings; EDGAR; Chairman Cox, SOX)
(b) Development of international, jurisdictional, industry taxonomies
(c) Adoption by individual companies (company taxonomies)
(c) Transparency in financial reporting
(d) Standardization of accounting principles (GAAP, IFRS)
(e) Impact on individual investors (mutual funds)
(f) Impact on institutional and international investors
(g) Importance for capital acquisition (small caps)

Chapter 6 XBRL Global Ledger
(a) Relationship of XBRL-GL to XBRL-FR
(b) Uses in both internal and external reporting
(c) Improvements in internal control (improved audit trails, eliminate manual intervention, help meet SOX requirements)
(d) XBRL and BPM (Business Process Management)
(e) XBRL and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), Web Services
(f) Facilitates data exchange with external parties (partners, suppliers, customers)
(g) Potential in M&A

Chapter 7 How XBRL Will Affect Financial Professionals
(a) External auditors
(b) Internal auditors
(c) Management accountants
(d) Bankers, credit professionals
(e) Security analysts (equity and fixed, sell-side and buy-side, fundamental and quantitative)

Chapter 8 XBRL and the Public Sector
(a) Special benefits (reduce reporting costs by cross-department filings; helps regulators comply with increased analytical needs, eg, from SOX)
(b) Special challenges (changes in political leadership, government budgeting)
(c) Increasing use by national taxing authorities
(d) Developments in Federal government (non-SEC)
(e) Examples from overseas governments

Chapters 9 How XBRL Works (Technical Description)
This will be the toughest chapter(s) to write. Figuring out how much technical information the average reader can absorb is always difficult. It’s facile to say any technical subject can be made understandable if it’s expressed in clear, simple language. That isn’t true. But any Dummies-type book that doesn’t at least try to give readers some idea of the technical underbelly of XBRL isn’t achieving its mission. The best handling of the material I’ve seen is the IASB’s and that still gets pretty technical pretty fast.

Chapter 10 XBRL Resources
(a) Websites (eg, XBRL.org)
(b) Forums (eg, XBRL-Public)
(c) Blogs
(d) Books, periodicals, special reports (such as those of the FEI)

There’s another introductory XBRL book to be written that focuses purely on its technical aspects. I guess if there can be a, for example, BEA WebLogic Server 8 for Dummies, there can be such a Dummies book for XBRL, even if I don’t think the title is appropriate. At any rate, the need for more books on XBRL is strong and apparent — although the benefit to authors may be more personal than pecuniary.

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