How should the XBRL standard grow to support large-scale data collection?
UBPartner offers interesting food for thought in a recent paper on improving XBRL for data modelling, asking how we can help taxonomy authors to develop and manage large reporting systems.
The paper considers the approach taken by the European Banking Authority (EBA) and European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) of generating XBRL taxonomies from another format, rather than using an XBRL taxonomy as their starting point. It uses the issues raised by the EBA, EIOPA and national competent authorities (NCAs) as a lens to consider the key requirements of large reporting frameworks, the status of the XBRL specifications and developments toward meeting them, and the improvements needed to ensure that XBRL can more easily model large-scale collection systems.
The authors argue that most of the features sought by the EBA and EIOPA are or will be available under the Open Information Model (OIM), the XBRL International initiative to modernise the XBRL standard and decouple it from any specific syntax, enabling the development of multiple interchangeable formats – including xBRL-CSV, which is designed to efficiently handle large datasets. They also discuss in depth the major ongoing developments in the XBRL standard relating to data-quality validation, a particular strength of XBRL.
However, they find that certain concerns do remain to be addressed, for example around versioning requirements. They also suggest that the XBRL community needs to give additional thought to how Dimensions, Tables, Calculations, and Formulas can work together to help deliver better XBRL models. Another key insight is that software vendors appear to lack incentive to build the type of data modelling tools that large XBRL taxonomy authors need.
“The real issue that the EBA reveals for the XBRL community, is that defining large-scale reporting frameworks in XBRL is a largely manual and complex process,” argue the authors. “OIM is a crucial step in ensuring the future by supporting alternative formats, however, the XSB [XBRL Standards Board] also needs to focus on recommendations that make it simpler and less resource-intensive to design and develop an XBRL Taxonomy that is consistent and performant,” they conclude.
This is a thoughtful and considered contribution to a complex discussion – well worth a read, whether or not you share the authors’ perspectives! Thanks!
Find the article in full here.
