As of December, 2008, the SEC requires the largest companies to file financial statements, particularly annual 10-K and quarterly 10-Q financial reports using XBRL. By the end of 2009 this mandate will spread to most Fortune 1500 companies, and by the end of 2010 it will cover all public companies.

Thanks to recent events, the world turns its eyes to Wall Street. One of the hot topics is how to increase the transparency of descriptions of business activity and financial results. The financial sector and the SEC have long approached this problem with XBRL, an XML language for business reports. XBRL uses a variety of XML technologies, including XLink to provide rich detail for financial information.

Thinking XML: Analyze financial reporting using XBRL

Uche Ogbuji at IBM/developerWorks