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What is Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)?

XBRL is an XML based taxonomy with which users can prepare, publish (in a variety of formats), exchange and analyze financial statements and the information they contain. An XBRL Instance Document is a business report, such as a financial statement prepared to the XBRL specification. The meaning of each value in the Instance Document is explained by the taxonomy.

An XBRL enabled application will read this information and compare it to a published XBRL definition, and extract the information accordingly.

XBRL is developed by XBRL International, a consortium sponsored by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants started in 1999. This group is committed to developing and promulgating a world-wide standard, and corresponding taxonomies, for storing or exchanging business reporting information.

How it works
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