Use Cases

Reporting Software renders report in MicroXBRL

An accounting or report production package that has captured mapping definitions between XBRL concepts and contexts and internal charts of accounts will have a "Create MicroXBRL" feature. This will output the XBRL instructions inside XHTML in accordance with the MicroXBRL spec. For humans, the report will be viewable in the same way as any other type of XHTML. Systems that want to consume the XBRL can use the normative style sheet that resides on the XBRL web site to transform the XHTML into a valid instance document.

To meet reporting requirements for regulatory or stock exchange filing, as well as for internal reporting needs, a software tool like an accounting package can be extended to create MicroXBRL reports, embedding XBRL instructions inside the report pages that it otherwise creates in plain XHTML. For accounting software vendors this seems like a path of least resistance. For XBRL instance document production tools, the MicroXBRL feature seems like a straight-forward enhancement.

The issues associated with adding a standard XML-Signature to MicroXBRL pages appear reasonably small. This would allow a preparer to attest to the quality and accuracy of information contained in a web page that has been marked up in this manner and seems a logical extension to reporting tool capabilities.

Regulator Consumes MicroXBRL

A securities, tax or prudential regulator will accept a MicroXBRL document (which is a web page, expressed in XHTML, with XBRL tags added to it). The regulator will store the XHTML permanently to allow regulators to see the report in exactly the manner that the preparer intended. The regulator will also transform the MicroXBRL document into a valid XBRL instance document which will get consumed by exception reporting and business analysis processes inside the organisation.

Head Office Consumes Divisional Report

Head office needs to create a consolidated report from a number of divisions, that (in all likelihood) use disperate reporting tools. Instead of each division creating a spreadsheet and e-mailing it to head office for manual manipulation, each division will create a report in MicroXBRL and post it to a known place in (if necessary) a secure intranet location. Authorised users can examine divisional performance in isolation (by looking at what appears to be a very ordinary web page containing a report). Authorised systems can consume the MicroXBRL pages by converting them into XBRL instance documents and using that data. Depending on whether the consuming systems are push, pull or SOA based, the resulting report can be updated continuously.