Open Source Solutionsin XBRL

Javi MoraXBRL SpainManager

javier.mora@xbrl.org.es

XI European Banking Supervisors XBRL Workshop, Vienna, AUSTRIA. November 16-20, 2009

Open source XBRL tools state of art

Open Source role in XBRL reporting data flow

Real Case: Integrating open source XBRL processors

Discussion Points

Open Source role in XBRL reporting data flow

XBRL offers major benefits at all stages of the information supply chain where XBRL-

tagged data can be reused and shared

The benefits are seen in automation; cost savings; faster, more reliable and more

accurate handling of data; improved analysis; and better quality of information

for decision-making

Open Source role in XBRL reporting data flow

Open source XBRL tools state of art

Open Source role in XBRL reporting data flow

Real Case: Integrating open source XBRL processors

Discussion Points

CENATIC is the Spanish National Reference Centre for the Application of Information and Communication Technologies based on open source initiatives.

CENATIC

The CENATIC project is to promote the knowledge and best practice of open source software.

To promote the use of interactive data XBRL as the standard language for the financial information data exchange.

CENATIC’s XBRL open source study

CENATIC has published an XBRL Open Source study on April 2008

Guide diagram

XBRL open source

projects “Short list”

Preliminary

Analysis

3

4 Final AnalysisInitial research

Viability Study

• SWOT Matrix

• Deeper evaluation of general features and XBRL functionalities

• Special Attention to:– XBRL standard

level of commitment

– Maturity level and support

– Evolution capabilities

• Conclusions

• To consider both independent open source initiatives as well as private corporation promotion ones

• Special interest in success stories

• National and International initiatives

• Take into account National ERP software converter modules (to XBRL)

Identify libraries

and tools to

evaluate

2

• Clear, useful and transparent criteria

• General Features

– High Level criteria (“integration level”, f.e.)

– Technical criteria

• XBRL functionality

– Corresponds to specifications

– Specific features

Define selection

criteria

1

0 Background

Ob

jectives

•A

nalyze viab

ility of X

BR

L o

pen

so

urce p

rom

otio

n o

f the

softw

are for E

RP

pro

viders

•Id

entify cu

rrent X

BR

L o

pen

so

urce so

lutio

ns

Promote XBRL adoption in Public Sector

Growing interest in ERP sw providers

XBRL open source solutions scarce at a first sight

• Grouping users, receivers and technology providers

• CENATIC as initial promoter

• Initial start up: public sector ERPs

• Spanish Public Sector Taxonomies

• Platform selection:

– the most complete in functionality

– the best implemented in technical terms

– the best in maturity level, support and upgrades

– the best in adjusting to open source patterns

XBRL C³ community

creation

Selection criteria definitionGeneral Features

Licence type

Existence of promoters

Availability of success stories

Number of Developers in the community

Frequency of new software releases

Year of last software version released

Availability of Documentation

Support channels (phone, email, forums, rss-feed, …)

Participation of the developer community in XBRL Spain or XBRL International working groups

Commitment and

level of platform

support

Technical criteria

and integration

High

High

Medium

Low

Medium

High

Medium

Low

Medium

Source code available in multiple programming languages

Operating Systems / Platforms supported

Ease of integration

Other open source libraries/tools integration

Availability of APIs

IDE integration tools

Low

High

High

High

High

Medium

Criteria Weight

XBRL 2.1 specification compliance

XBRL 2.1 Conformance Suite Test compliance

XDT 1.0 dimension specification compliance

XDT 1.0 Conformance Suite Test compliance

Formula specification (Candidate Recommendation) support

Formula Conformance Suite Test support

Versioning specification support

Criteria

XBRL specification

conformance

Specific XBRL

features

Weight

High

Medium

High

Medium

Medium

Low

Low

Transformation formats implemented

ETL mechanisms to enable XBRL generation

Availability of XBRL APIs

XBRL processing methods to validate taxonomies

XBRL processing methods to edit taxonomies

XBRL processing methods to validate instance documents

XBRL processing methods to edit instance documents

XBRL processing methods to read/navigate through instance documents

XBRL processing methods to execute Formulae and Functions

XBRL processing methods for taxonomy versioning metadata

Medium

Low

High

High

Low

High

Medium

High

Low

Low

Selection criteria definitionXBRL Features

Identify libraries and tools for evaluation in the initial research

xBReeze Open Source Edition

Promoter: UBMATRIX (USA)

UBMatrix open source version of the commercial XBRL processor

GPL Licence

XBRLAPI.org

Promoter: Galexy Limited (Australia)

Hosted on Sourceforge, under LGPL Licence

ABRA XBRL Processor

Promoter: ABZ Reporting (Germany)

XBRL processor based on the transformation language XSLT

It is distributed under Apache 2.0 licence

Batavia XBRL Java Library (BXJL)

Promoter: Batavia Business Reporting (Netherlands)

Batavia offer their XBRL library under a temporary evaluation licence (AGPL)

xBReeze Open Source Edition SWOT Analysis

WEAKNESSESWEAKNESSES

THREATSTHREATS

STRENGTHSSTRENGTHS

OPPORTUNITIESOPPORTUNITIES

Good documentation and examples.

Fast start up and easy to integrate “black box”

A complete solution conforming to XBRL and XDT specifications

Very stable and thoroughly tested.

Additional conformance suite test and implementation tools

available.

The API is not very intuitive.

Complex package and classes architecture

The performance is not remarkable

Extending functionality via a development community could be tough.

The addition of features using the library, such as the development of an XBRL viewer, may not be quick to implement.

It offers a trusted and robust XBRL validation engine out of the box with zero cost of implementation.

XBRLAPI.orgSWOT Analysis

WEAKNESSESWEAKNESSES

THREATSTHREATS

STRENGTHSSTRENGTHS

OPPORTUNITIESOPPORTUNITIES

Excellent support and level of response.

Very good XML integration and Database connectivity.

It offers cache level facilities for processing taxonomies.

The API is very intuitive.

There is no a fully functional version released.

It doesn’t provide a fully XBRL conformant processor, able to perform validation.

The documentation is not extensive, and the number of examples is not sufficient, which makes implementation more difficult.

Being mainly a personal initiative, there is a risk that development may be discontinued.

It provides a very good base for the creation of new XBRL functionalities and services from scratch.

Batavia XBRL Java Library (BXJL)SWOT Analysis

WEAKNESSESWEAKNESSES

THREATSTHREATS

STRENGTHSSTRENGTHS

OPPORTUNITIESOPPORTUNITIES

A complete solution conforming to XBRL and XDT specifications.

Very clear and intuitive API

Fast to deploy and integrate

Very good performance

It provides conformance suite testing tools and implementation.

Steep learning curve.

It provides a temporary evaluation licence, not truly an open source initiative.

It provides a very good base for creation of new XBRL functionalities and services from scratch

It offers a trusted and robust XBRL validator with a minimum cost.

ABRA XBRL ProcessorSWOT Analysis

WEAKNESSESWEAKNESSES

THREATSTHREATS

STRENGTHSSTRENGTHS

OPPORTUNITIESOPPORTUNITIES

It was probably the first XBRL open source initiative

The IASC has been using this processor during some phases of the IFRS project for building a taxonomy viewer

Integration capabilities

Coverage of the XBRL specification

It seems that its development has been discontinued in favour of a commercial version of the product

It presents very interesting technical features, as it uses other XML standards like XSLT as the transformation formats

Decision matrix - Summary results

Criteria       Weight max.value

xBReeze XBRLAPI.org BXJL ABRA

1. Commitment and level of support of the platform

1 100 55 52 49 40

2. Technical criteria and related to integration

2 130 100 94 96 66

3. XBRL specification adequacy 4 280 204 124 204 100

4. Specific XBRL features 3 330 258 162 252 180

  Total    840 617 432 601 386

 % to max. value 

  73,4% 51,4% 71,5% 45,9%

Rating Total

Conclusions (I)

XBRL open source initiatives are scarce.

xBReeze, from UBMATRIX and Batavia XBRL Java Library (BXJL) are the

most complete solutions.

One important feature on processing XBRL is the validation engine, where

both xBReeze and BXJL libraries includes. The BXJL remarks on XBRL

validation, but their licence is not truly open source, dependent upon some

type of agreement with Batavia.

Conclusions (and II)

The development which is most focused on an open source community is

the XBRLAPI.org project, promoted by Galexy.

The combination of the libraries offers a sufficient base for the

development of an XBRL service platform or suite for processing and

interchange of XBRL documents.

The managing and accounting software providers should be invited to

participate in the initiative to create and evolve these open source libraries.

Open source XBRL tools state of art

Open Source role in XBRL reporting data flow

Real Case: Integrating open source XBRL processors

Discussion Points

INTECO and XBRL

INTECO is the National Communication Technology Institute in Spain for society development through projects in the innovation and technology areas. The promotion of XBRL as an standard data language is aimed as a key reference model for the Information Society.

INTECO has developed an API library for generating and validating XBRL tagged data according to new Spanish General Accepted Accounting Principles taxonomy. The cost of the project was € 80,000.

Objective: To provide an integration library isolating Tagged XBRL services in a layer

used by the generator side, ERP software providers

used by the receiver side, Business Registers

data volume: more than 600,000 financial statements from SMEs

Services Exposed:Generate XBRL from an XML simple fileGenerate XML simple file from an XBRL instance documentValidate XBRL instance documentXBRL viewer for financial statements

Integration Scenarios:Java API libraryCommand Line shell wrapper

INTECO’s XBRL API library

Receiver

Sender

Generation of XML

documentsin a common

format

XBRLinstance

Transformation XML to XBRL

XMLvalidation

Transformation service

XBRLValidator

Validation service

XBRLinstance

XBRLValidator

Validation service XBRL

VisualizationVisualization service

Transformation XBRL to XML

XMLvalidation

Transformation service

HTMLpage

XMLdocument

INTECO’s XBRL API library

Results

November 2009:

50+ ERP providers have integrated the API Library

It is being used as a reference model for additional data flows.

In April 2009 the source code of this project has been released under LGPL licence.

Conclusion

These real cases using open source tools for integrating XBRL services represents an additional scenario for automating the use

of XBRL tagged data in reporting chain.

Corollary: fundraising an off the shelf open source primary reporting system

would be an useful XBRL solution for Developing Countries.

More XBRL Open Source Projects

Wiki XBRL

www.xbrlwiki.info

Links

http://observatorio.cenatic.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=243%3Aestudio-de-la-situacion-actual-de-herramientas-xbrl-extensible-business-reporting-language-en-fuente-abierta&catid=73%3Aempresas&Itemid=23

www.xbrl.es

www.inteco.eshttp://www.inteco.es/Calidad_del_Software/descargas/api_xbrl_pgc2007/

www.cenatic.es

Questions ?XI European Banking Supervisors XBRL Workshop, Vienna, AUSTRIA. November 16-20, 2009

Javi MoraXBRL SpainManager

javier.mora@xbrl.org.es

Open Source Solutionsin XBRL