Financial Reporting Links

The Intangibles Research Project  which is a part of the Vincent C. Ross Institute of Accounting Research programme. The director is Baruch Lev

Cisco, Moving Toward the One-Day Close of Books: This page reninforces the view that accounting is becoming more automated.

XBRL: Reading and analysing financial statements more effectively

XBRL, is an XML-based framework for the reporting of business information. Click here to review some Frequently Answered Questions page.

Definitions

ebXML - electronic business XML
XBRL - eXtensible Business Reporting Language
XFRML - eXtensible Financial Reporting Markup Language (now XBRL)
XML - eXtensible Markup Language

Also see 

ebXML.org - ebXML, the Electronic Business XML initiative from the UN and supported by the UK's Association for Standards and Practices in Electronic Trade.

XML.com - an essential XML resource. Includes news, buyers guides, nine themed resource centres (including a business centre) and the option to subscribe to the free e-mail newsletter XML Xtra!

XML.org - industry portal to news, information and resources on XML.

Click here for some further links on XBRL

Financial Reporting in the Internet Age

Internet publishing is clearly going to change the form, if not the substance, of financial reporting. The ease and low cost with which information is delivered has already dramatically increased the amount and types of information available to investors. Publishing with web-based tools will enable management teams to more clearly present the information in a structure that highlights the most important content, and allows a user to drill down and analyze where he or she is more interested. Multi-media formats will be employed soon to further enhance communication.

To get a sense of the capabilities enabled by web-based publishing, check out Microsoft's investor relations site, where it posts its annual report. Scott Boggs, corporate controller, is a leader of FEI's Committee on Finance and Information Technology, and Jerry Masters, senior director - planning and reporting, is active in our Committee on Corporate Reporting.

The site broadly employs pivot tables that allow the conversion of the financial statements to other currencies and other GAAPs. You literally can look at its statements in Japanese GAAP or in yen or both at the press of a button. It also lets you view and analyze Microsoft revenues by sales channel and product group in a whole new way. For example, you can look at Windows platform revenue in Asia."

See Microsoft Financial Reports
Phil Livingston (President of the Financial Executives Institute) in FEI Express March 8, 2000