investing community. It provides major benefits in the preparation,
analysis and communication of business information.
XBRL is a cutting-edge technology standard that enables faster and more
cost-efficient electronic exchange of information.The idea behind XBRL
is simple. Instead of treating financial information as a block of
text, essentially, the XBRL technology allows electronic tagging of
each individual item of data so that computers can work on the
information using a set of rules.
The electronic tags that are applied are standardized and are contained in taxonomies which are essentially the dictionaries used by XBRL that define the specific tags for individual items of data. The tags are applied using a tagging tool that retrieves the tags from the standards taxonomies and applies them
to whatever format the financial statements are created in, such as
Microsoft Word or Excel.Seeing the rising importance of XBRL as an
effective means of communicating financial information and the plethora
of benefits it has to offer, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of
India (ICAI), the apex accounting body of the country, constituted the
XBRL Group in the year 2007 for undertaking the development and
promotion of XBRL in India.
The Institute is spearheading the XBRL initiative in the country and is the provisional jurisdiction of XBRL in India. In its endeavor of providing best to its members the Institute has recently launched XBRL India website in the International
Conference held at Agra from July 3-5, 2009.
The website was launched by CA. Uttam Prakash Agarwal, President, ICAI in the presence of CA. Mohandas Pai, Infosys Technologies and Ms. Liv Watson, XBRL
International, Vice Chair. T
The URL of XBRL India website is
XBRL India
The ICAI, India jurisdiction has developed the taxonomy
for general purpose financial statements for commercial and industrial
sector. The exposure draft of the taxonomy has already been issued and
it will be sent for accreditation by XBRL, International shortly.
Taxonomy for banks is under preparation and exposure draft is expected
to be issued shortly