What is XBRL?
2 minute read
XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a global data standard for structuring financial information, so it is optimised for machine-readable, consistent, and comparable.
XBRL is used by millions of companies across the world from the USA to Europe and Japan, and, because it has been in place for more than a decade, there is a wealth of data already available. This page tells you what XBRL is and how it fits into the UK ecosystem.
Decision-useful data
How does the UK use XBRL?
In the UK, XBRL is used to digitally tag financial statements for regulatory submissions to HMRC, Companies House and the FCA. Anyone can access digital financial statements filed at Companies House and the FCA and the easiest way to do this is by using the UK iXBRL viewer.
The digital tags are drawn from taxonomies that are produced by the FRC. These are the official lists of reporting concepts, definitions, and relationships aligned to accounting standards such as UK GAAP or IFRS, and other regulation such as structured energy and carbon reporting regulations.
How does XBRL enhance an annual report?
XBRL doesn't change an annual report - it enhances it with layers of digital metadata, making the same information quicker to access and more useful for users.
Same content, new format
Every figure and disclosure in an annual report – such as revenue, assets, or accounting policies – is represented as a fact in an XBRL report. Each fact is linked to:
- A concept defined in the taxonomy (e.g. “Revenue” or “Total Assets”) .
- A context which explains who the data relates to, and for what period.
- An entity consists of two components:
- a URL of the identification scheme that defines the entity:
- 'http://standards.iso.org/iso/17442' for a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)
- 'http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk' for a Company Registration Number (CRN)
- the unique code used for the entity within that scheme. These are issued to entities when they register with the relevant identification scheme.
- a URL of the identification scheme that defines the entity:
- A period which defines the accounting period that applies to a fact. This is defined as the date of a day (yyyy-mm-dd).
- Depending on the fact, periods may either be an instant (yyyy-mm-dd, for example, 'Equity at 1 Jan 20xx') or a duration (from yyyy-mm-dd to yyyy-mm-dd, for example 'Revenue').
- An entity consists of two components:
- A unit (e.g., GBP, shares).
This is the minimum information required to disclose a fact: what it relates to, who it relates to, and when this applies.
Taxonomies mirror accounting standards
The tags used in XBRL come from taxonomies aligned to UK GAAP, IFRS, and other regulatory requirements. This means the structure of your digital report reflects the same standards that underpins the paper report – it’s not an extra set of rules, just a digital representation of what is already in the report.
Inline XBRL (iXBRL) keeps it human-friendly
iXBRL goes on step further than just marking up disclosures in XBRL. Tags are embedded in an XHTML version of the annual report. To a human reader, it looks like a normal web page or PDF-style document. To a computer, it’s a structured dataset ready for analysis.