Bob Schneider is a Partner in 
Wilson So is the Director of Hitachi America, Ltd. Getting the FAQs on XBRL
Written by Bob Schneider Posted on April 10, 2008
On the (very) odd chance you’ve never heard of a FAQ, it’s a list of Frequently Asked Questions about a particular subject, along with their answers. According to Wikipedia, the first FAQ was created for the SPACE mailing list of NASA in 1983. Now, of course, FAQs have become de rigueur as a device for learning about any new subject. In a field like interactive data, which is not immediately intuitive and has so many facets, a FAQ can be an extremely useful teaching tool.
One of the best FAQs on XBRL, even if its title doesn’t bear that three-letter abbreviation, is Charlie Hoffman’s What CFOs Need to Know About XBRL. Published just a few weeks ago, it covers key points such as an SEC mandate, who is using XBRL, what a taxonomy is, and what skills are required to prepare an instance document.
For XBRL Global Ledger, the XBRL GL Working Group has not only provided a text FAQ but a 50-minute webcast as well. Eric Cohen, who has spearheaded the development of XBRL GL, and Gianluca Garbellotto, chair of the Working Group, answer more than 40 questions, ranging from Why Is XBRL GL Needed? to What Competitors Does XBRL GL Have?, as well as addressing costs and benefits.
Here is a list of some other useful FAQs on interactive data:
• XBRL.org A lengthy and wide-ranging FAQ from XBRL’s international consortium.
• IASC Foundation A technically oriented list, providing descriptions of such terms as extensions, schema, and linkbases.
• Grant Thornton This excellent FAQ with 28 questions is a bit dated but still highly useful.
• XBRL Australia This very detailed FAQ answers loads of technical questions. Although it requires significant updating, it is still helpful for basic technical facts.
• Microsoft A short FAQ with some answers about the software giant’s adoption of interactive data.