Posts Tagged "iphix"
Introducing DEXT – the Deeply Embedded XBRL Toolkit for data integration, internal and external reporting, data monitoring and auditing
While the benefits of XBRL in terms of data transparency, cost savings and greater efficiencies in handling data are widely recognized by data consumers (regulators, analysts and investors), businesses and not-for-profit organizations are not typically looking at XBRL to achieve the same benefits internally.
IPHIX is releasing DEXT, a set of software tools, free knowledge bases and other resources that help organizations do just that – leverage the benefits of “deeply embedded XBRL” internally, whether they are subject to an XBRL mandate or not. DEXT is not an alternative to the software applications in use within a corporate information system; rather, it is an enabler for the use of data standardization to get better results from those applications, and yield an immediate, positive return on your existing IT investment.
Here are a few examples of how DEXT is used:
- To bring together accounting and/or operational data from disparate applications for a specific internal reporting purpose, such as providing a consistent view on information related to a specific category of costs across different units of a company that use different systems
- To apply the same business rules to data stored in different systems for data monitoring and auditing
- To create automated processes to feed KPI systems and executive dashboards from accounting systems and operational modules
- To create and reconcile summarized reports for internal and external use, such as tax returns, reports for external auditors and CPAs, management reports
- If the organization is actually subject to an XBRL mandate, to generate the relevant XBRL filings in a simplified and more efficient way
There are many more examples. Indeed, whenever there is the need to aggregate, analyze or report data across different applications, or to complement the reporting or analytical capabilities of one application, without a significant investment, deeply embedded XBRL is the solution, and DEXT can help.
Because XBRL can be applied to a very broad range of diverse internal data-related processes, it can be difficult for an organization to decide where to start using it, and how to best leverage DEXT. This is why IPHIX conceived Three Easy Steps – a simple, proven methodology and a package of products and services that enables businesses and organizations of any size to complete their first deeply embedded XBRL project using DEXT and leveraging our expertise. At the same time, executing each segment of the Three Easy Steps process will give users the knowledge and the experience necessary to continue on their own after the first successful implementation.
Three Easy Steps has been developed distilling the experience accumulated over many years of thought leadership and unmatched experience on the internal use of XBRL, and applying the lessons learned in our leading role in helping Governments and regulators in various countries implement XBRL-based projects.
Another factor that can complicate the decision of undertaking a deeply embedded XBRL project is that it can be hard to estimate the time that will be necessary to complete the project and the resources that will be needed. The costs of the necessary consulting services can become significant and, more important, they are hard to predict — initial estimates can easily be exceeded once the project is kicked off. That’s why we decided to offer Three Easy Steps for a flat, all-inclusive fee. It will make the investment decision easier; on our side, we are totally confident that a Three Easy Steps implementation will deliver immediate value, and that we can leverage our experience to complete it quickly and efficiently.
Also, our new XBRL Inside training is the first and only training course designed to provide the specific knowledge and the hands-on experience necessary to use XBRL within an organization. It is a great way to prepare for your first “deeply embedded XBRL” project, whether you plan to use our Three Easy Steps methodology or to do it on your own.
All of us at IPHIX are very excited about the release of DEXT and Three Easy Steps. We deeply believe in the potential of XBRL to bring significant benefits to businesses and organizations, large and small, in terms of total internal data transparency and accessibility. We also believe that these benefits will not be realized until XBRL is used as more than just an e-Filing format, which is the reality today. We think that DEXT and Three Easy Steps will help change that.
Check the Three Easy Steps and DEXT websites, and let us know what you think.
Introducing iNEWS, a Monthly Update of XBRL Developments
There are so many email newsletters out there, and if everybody is like me many of them remain mostly unread. Great sources of XBRL related news abound – the news feed at xbrl.org, some very comprehensive daily Twitter summaries, and many others.
IPHIX just released the first issue of iNEWS, a monthly newsletter that provides a list of key XBRL updates, and one may wonder why we felt that it could be useful.
The idea is to provide a one-stop source of relevant XBRL developments and of key non-XBRL stories from the financial reporting world, just in case you missed those in your other reading. They are organized as a simple list of links that can be opened and read quickly. Occasionally we’ll add our two cents on matters if we think it’s useful. But mostly we’ll just give you the links, so you can quickly get up to speed and move on. The links are organized in sections — such as Recent Developments, Blogs, Articles, Presentations and Webcasts — that will make it even easier to quickly identify what you may be interested in, and ignore the rest.
I believe that its format and the way its content is organized will make of iNEWS a useful resource. You can find the first issue here.
If you like what you see, please subscribe. And if you have comments or suggestions, please let me or our editor Bob Schneider know. Happy reading!
New IPHIX Corporate Blog
With the release of the new IPHIX website we are also starting a corporate blog. I will keep writing on the GLG Repository and my posts will show up in the IPHIX blog as well, or at least the XBRL related ones. In addition, the IPHIX blog will from time to time have posts from guest bloggers – and by the way, if you are interested in posting something you can contact us.
If you are a reader of the GLG Repository for professional reasons you may want to subscribe to the IPHIX blog instead. The current skin of the GLG Repository may have already suggested that the tone of the blog will slightly change, to become a little more personal. At least this is one of my New Year resolutions, we’ll see if time allows.
So I hope to see you there… and here, if you care to stick around.
IPHIX Turns Page
The IPHIX web site is down today… no, not because of SOPA, even though indeed we don’t agree with its current formulation. Oh and by the way talking about SOPA this article called my attention as a very objective and balanced comment on the “Wikipedia Blackout” that occurred yesterday. Yes, it was a great thing. No, I hope it will never happen again, not even for a worthy cause like in this case. Because there is a tangible risk that people enthusiastically buy into any form of ”crowdsourced protest” just because it is the new cool thing, and that only a small percentage of them really takes the time to look into the reasons, understand the issues and form their own opinion. Anyway, I digress.
The IPHIX web site is down today because a brand new website will take its place. An exciting brand new image, a lot of new content, and a renewed focus on what we think matters the most in the XBRL world: enabling businesses large and small to leverage data standardization internally, and to achieve costs savings and internal process efficiencies that would otherwise require a significant investment in new software and in the time and resources necessary to deploy it.
All the thinking done and the experience gained in many years of leadership in the internal use of XBRL within businesses and NFP organizations is now coming together under new offerings of tools and services designed to support deeply embedded XBRL. implementations, which will complement (and leverage) our extensive experience in helping governments and regulators worldwide design and deploy their XBRL based programs.
It is an exciting moment for us, and we can’t wait to share the news with our clients and those who follow us and support our vision of total data transparency and accessibility within the enterprise through standardization. So please stay tuned, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest updates – the Hello World moment will happen sometimes between now and the end of the upcoming weekend.
New release of SRCD Engine available in SourceForge
I just uploaded in the codexbrl project in SourceForge the new release of the SRCD Engine, a library of functions that leverages the Summary Reporting Contextual Data (SRCD) module of the XBRL Global Ledger Framework. These functions enable to convert between XBRL GL and XBRL FR instances and to process the link between XBRL GL and XBRL FR data; these capabilities are the foundation for drilling down from summarized XBRL data (XBRL FR) to the underlying XBRL detailed data (XBRL GL) and back, enabling the use of XBRL for internal reporting, auditing and more.
I will provide more details on these functionalities in an upcoming post. For now, I am very happy that we managed to release this just before the start of the XBRL Conference in Paris. I am pretty sure that this will be very useful for the XBRL GL training sessions that Eric E. Cohen and I will be teaching there on June 22 and 23. Great job, Iphix team!
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