Johannesburg, Thursday, 10 April 2008 - XBRL International's largest ever event will take place in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on May 5 to 8 this year.
XBRL, Extensible Business Reporting Language, is a reporting shorthand designed to develop and publish business information, streamline reporting processes, enhance profitability and increase transparency.
"XBRL is revolutionising the face of global business," says Graham Terry, chairman of XBRL South Africa and head of the CEO's office at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).
He says that South Africa dare not be left behind if it is to remain abreast of an approach being adopted by all First World countries.
"The governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States have regulatory mandates or have voluntary filing programmes for business reporting using XBRL."
At the event, business executives and finance professionals will participate in workshops and forums to hear leading financial industry experts speak on:
- How governments are requiring XBRL for business reporting and how financial analysts, regulators, accounting professionals and technologists are collaborating and using XBRL to solve complex business problems and issues.
- What tools and cost-effective solutions can help organisations use the power of XBRL to enable investors, management, analysts and regulators to create interactive data, access the business information they want, and analyse in a reliable and easy-to-use format.
- Why interactive data greatly improves the way in which business information is created, communicated and consumed to help investors, management, analysts and regulators increase the access and accuracy of business information to make quicker, better and more accurate decisions.
Terry urges the following to attend the event:
- CEOs, CFOs and Finance Professionals of public and private companies, who will learn how to tag their financials in XBRL using cost effective vendors and understand the external and internal benefits of using interactive data through real users. They will hear from companies using XBRL to improve investor relations activities and from internal financial management teams using XBRL to consolidate financials and better manage the operations of the company.
- Investment Professionals and Analysts, who will learn from peers around the world how they are using XBRL to improve the depth and breadth of coverage of companies to help their clients make better investment decisions.
- Regulators, who will be advised on how to use XBRL to improve efficiency and accuracy of regulatory reporting and hear case studies from government agencies successfully using interactive data.
- Software developers, who will be briefed on new tools and add-ons that can be used in XBRL products created by leading XBRL technology providers.
- Accounting and audit professionals, who will learn how XBRL is improving client relations by integrating XBRL into their practices and those of their clients.
Speaking at the XBRL conference organised by SAICA last year (2007), the commissioner of the South African Revenue Services (SARS), Pravin Gordhan said he expected SARS to begin receiving corporate tax returns in XBRL format.
He also said XBRL was sweeping the world as a standard for exchanging information between different systems.
For the XBRL International Conference Information and Registration & Hotel Registration go to: http://conference.xbrl.org/registrationor visit www.xbrl.org/zafor more information.