XBRL® For Dummies® > Wrapping Your Head Around XBRL > Answering the Question, "Why XBRL...

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Chapter 1. Wrapping Your Head Around XBRL > Benefitting from Using XBRL b
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This Book
1.6. Benefitting from Using XBRL
XBRL® For
Dummies®
One of the early adopters of XBRL was the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC), which is a member of the U.S. Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council
(FFIEC). The FDIC took the time to collect and communicate information about its
implementation of XBRL to help others understand any benefits that existed. (This
information is available on the Web at http://xbrl.org/us/us/ffiec%20White%20Paper%
Search
2031Jan06.pdf.)

Contents
Table of Contents
Index
Examples
Errata
Copyright
About the Authors and
Contributors
Dedication
Authors' Acknowledgments
Publisher's Acknowledgments
Introduction
Pt. I. The Very Least You
Need to Know about XBRL
Ch. 1. Wrapping Your Head
Around XBRL
Answering the Question,
"Why XBRL?"
Looking at XBRL in
Different Ways
Dispelling Common
Misconceptions
Compelling Reasons to
Consider XBRL
Getting a Grip on XBRL
Fundamentals
Benefitting from
Using XBRL
Discovering Other Ways
to Use XBRL
Making XBRL Work for
You
Ch. 2. Taking to Heart the
Essential Concepts of XBRL
Ch. 3. Glancing at XBRL's
Parts
Ch. 4. An XBRL Primer
Ch. 5. Pinning Down How
XBRL Affects You
Pt. II. Embracing XBRL for
Classic Challenges and New
Possibilities
As an example of the benefits XBRL can provide, here is a summary of the advantages of
using XBRL that the FDIC found:
• Decreased total cost of ownership: The FDIC reduced the total cost of ownership
of their system from $65 million to $39 million, a savings of $26 million.
• Greater timeliness of information: The FDIC reduced the time it took to make
information available from 45 days to 2 days. The FDIC achieved this time reduction
by validating information as part of submission, using XBRL's ability to express
business rules; providing those rules to software vendors so that those creating
submissions could validate their own information; verifying information; and only
letting valid information be accepted by the system.
• Higher quality of information: Contributing to the greater timeliness of information
was the reduction of mathematical errors from 18,000 to 0 in the very first filing
period XBRL was used. The FDIC reduced errors by, again, expressing the rules,
making those rules available during creation of the information, and then not allowing
information that violated the rules to come into the system. This higher quality of
information also reduced the number of analysts needed to detect and correct
mathematical errors by 33 percent because the analysts did not have to call banks
and ask them to correct this type of error in their submissions. There are other types
of errors than mathematical errors, so you still need analysts.
• Greater reusability of information: The FDIC makes the information it collects for
banks available to the other five members of the FFIEC and to the public. Before
XBRL, the information was converted to different formats for the different systems of
the other members, and the information was made available in a format that was
simple but not very usable to the general public. Today, XBRL is the format that
everyone, including the FDIC and other FFIEC members, uses, and it's accessible to
the general public. Anyone can obtain a standard, off-the-shelf XBRL viewer
application and use the information, or computer applications can read the data feeds
to reuse the information.
• Greater flexibility of information collection: Prior to using XBRL, the FDIC rarely
dropped irrelevant information that it was collecting or adjusted the system for new
information collected. When adjustments were made, it was a laborious and painful
process to not only update the FDIC systems, but also to adjust the software vendor
applications. The FDIC used various formats, including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft
Word, PDF, and HTML, to communicate changes in information. When XBRL was
implemented, changing the system became a breeze for the FDIC. The FDIC could
communicate all changes in one format: XBRL. Software vendors could automate the
process of reading the changes and change their software applications to support
filing financial institutions. Because changing the collected information was so easy,
the FDIC could adjust the information their systems collected more often, adjusting as
frequently as their regulatory needs demanded.

Although the preceding benefits are specifically for the FDIC's implementation of XBRL, you
can see that the types of benefits they discovered are quite general and relate to literally
every system used to collect, manage, analyze, and share business information. Although
some benefits may have more value for some systems than for others, we think that you
can look at what the FDIC achieved and project from it what you may be able to achieve.

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XBRL® For Dummies® > Wrapping Your Head Around XBRL > Answering the Question, "Why XBRL... Page 2 of 2
Chapter 10 helps you understand ways XBRL can improve your organization's effectiveness
and efficiency and how to communicate that to your boss.

http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/book/databases/business-intelligence/9780470499795/wrapping-your-... 4/6/2011