eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)An open, market-driven computer language that allows for free electronic exchange of business and financial data. It provides a computer-readable identifying tag for each data item. is an open and uniform standard for business reporting. It provides a language in which reporting items (eg, current assets) are tagged. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text (eg, Word document), XBRL provides a computer-readable identifying tag defining each reporting item.

XBRL tags uniquely represent the contents of financial statements or other business reports. For example, "net income" has a unique tag, which allows a computer to generate a comparison of net income for multiple companies or reporting periods. XBRL eliminates the process of manual data comparison because computers can select, analyze, store, and exchange data in XBRL documents, thereby improving efficiency and reducing the chance of errors.

In addition, XBRL is:

• Built on Extensible Markup Language (XML).
• Able to handle data in different languages and accounting standards.
• Required for use in all public companies' filed financial statements.

(Choices B and D) Neither HyperText Markup Language (HTML)A standard language for tagging text used in the creation of web pages. nor Structured Query Language (SQL)A computer language used to insert, update, and delete tables and records in a relational database. is interchangeable with XBRL because they have different purposes. HTML is a language for creating web pages. SQL is used to insert, update, and retrieve records in a relational database.

(Choice C) XBRL requires the use of tags; these tags uniquely identify each element in a financial statement.

Things to remember:
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an open and uniform standard for business reporting. It provides a computer-readable identifying tag that defines each reporting item in a business report (ie, financial statement).