Thursday, June 29, 2017

Most Calcbench users have heard about XBRL. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (or XBRL for short), is an XML based mark-up computer language and is the basis of most of the data we offer at Calcbench.

Fewer may have heard about Inline-XBRL (iXBRL for short). iXBRL is a standard which combines a webpage with embedded XBRL tags. This way, companies who file an iXBRL document actually have control over the layout and formatting of the document. In other words, companies can file a document that would have the XBRL benefits (machine readable) and still control how the information is displayed (using iXBRL).  

There was some debate on whether allowing companies to file in iXBRL instead of or in addition to the regular XBRL format was good or not. Regardless, on June 13, 2016, the SEC allowed companies to file in iXBRL (SEC No 34-78041). At Calcbench, we keep track of what filings are in iXBRL and have seen a significant increase over time and it seems like more and more companies are choosing to take advantage of the new format.

Want to see it for yourself? Go to the multi-company page or the Excel add-in and look for the metric is_ixbrl (in the standardized metrics menu, look under “general”, for “Inline XBRL Filing”).*

*available to subscribers at the professional level.  

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