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The momentum behind the use of XBRL for improving the
efficiency, accuracy and transparency of business reporting
is growing. Today, developers are building and deploying,
XBRL-based applications that collect, validate, aggregate,
report or exchange for regulatory reporting and internal
information exchange. Developers are also currently
exploring the applicability of XBRL to solving one of
the key challenges of SOA deployment – providing a framework
for information that provides information consistency
across loosely coupled services.
For developers interested in building applications that leverage the power of XBRL, UBmatrix offers a developer program with access to the UBmatrix XBRL Processing Engine, codes samples, technical support and webcasts. All this is available for a small annual fee. For more information, click here.
Whether a developer is building a new application, such
as in the case of the Microfinance Information eXchange
(information hub) or is adding XBRL capabilities to
a current product such as in the case of Wolters Kluwer (accounting
application), the developer has to make an informed
buy versus build decision. That decision requires a full
understanding of the XBRL capabilities required (such as
dimensions and formulas), and a full understanding of
potential changes to the application over the lifetime
of deployment (for example, will the application and associated
taxonomy change or be extended over time).
To begin a new application or extend a current application
to support XBRL, requires that the application understand
the taxonomy (e.g. US-GAAP, XBRL-GL or CRAS) and potential
extensions. Once the taxonomy is parsed, the application
may need to create, validate, consume and/or store instance
documents. And the application needs to be flexible
enough to adapt as the underlying taxonomies are changed
or extended. It is possible to hard code these XBRL
functions for a given application/taxonomy with a thorough
understanding of XBRL. However, as the taxonomy grows
in complexity the development burden grows. And, if
the taxonomy is changing or being extending over time,
the maintenance and support burden grows. The developer
has to then consider how much to focus on core development
vs. supporting XBRL, UBmatrix has the answer.
UBmatrix provides a full technology stack for building
new applications or extending current applications.
The stack is built upon the UBmatrix Processing Engine
which can be embedded in applications to parse taxonomies
and then create, validate, and consume XBRL instance
documents. Enterprise Application Suite provides a set
of server-based portals on top of the processing engine
that can be extended to build internal and external
reporting applications. On the client side, Report Builder
(which extends MS Excel) has built-in API that enables
it to be integrated into a business information supply
chain. And finally, Taxonomy Designer provides the developer
the tool for building and testing taxonomies and XBRL
instance documents. UBmatrix products have been tested
in the development and deployment of the largest XBRL
applications to date. |
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