Research Of XBRL Financial Reporting Methods

With the development of information technology, especially the development of network technologies, it brings new innovative opportunities and challenges for the means of releasing financial reports. As the most updated internet financial reporting system, XBRL has received tremendous attention and was most recommended since its naissance. Comparing to the traditional financial reporting system, XBRL has many strengths. It enables unique metadata to be applied to individual data, and the metadata moves together with the data flow. It helps to collect information more efficiently and accurately. Businesses can utilize XBRL to store and process financial data, cutting out time consuming re-entry of information and lower the risk of re-entry error. XBRL also has the drill down function, which is the excellent dynamic analyzing function. All participants can benefit from this financial information supply chain to some extent.However, would XBRL be widely adopted and implemented by businesses across the world, since it is a newly developed internet technology? By investigating the feasibility of the XBRL from both the cost aspect and the profitability aspect, this paper tends to provide a suggestion on how to adopt and implement XBRL in a cost efficient way. By discussing various evaluation methods on measuring the investment cost, potential profit and risks involved in executing a XBRL reporting system from the business stand point, a most feasible business solution of combing the traditional ROI method together with the Balance Scorecard method is suggested.It discusses issues on constructing a XBRL financial report system from both the content prospective and the information transfer prospective. A new reporting method can be develop from a traditional financial reporting system to differentiate various information layers and recognize relativity as absolutely necessary attributes, and establish a five- layered color registration model, at the same time, multiple formats of financial report can be created based on demands; In terms of data processing, the foundation is laid on Events Approach Accounting theory. A XBRL financial reporting system can be broke down into event layer, account layer and report layer. After discussions on the designing method and designing process of the three layers, final resolution of a new financial reporting system is established by combining XBRL GL with XBRL FR and XBRL GL placed in the center.In the end of the paper, suggestions are made to the implementation of XBRL in China: First, strengthen the research effort on the basic theory of XBRL. Secondly, speed up the process of establishing and completing the classified standardization. Thirdly, train more XBRL personnel. Fourthly, develop more application programs and software.