XBRL for dummies

Today, the first meeting of the XAC, the XBRL Advisory Council to the IASCF took place in London. It was a very interesting kick-off meeting, indeed! To use an IT metaphor, I like to think of Accounting Standard Setting as constructing the Operating System that the economy works on. A principles based system such as IFRS can rely on a certain degree of fuzziness and the human factor when preparers and auditors apply the standards. But when this fuzziness actually is being translated into code, then a lot of nitty-gritty stuff appears. 

During the meeting, I first got my hands on a copy of XBRL for dummies, and since the book kindly features this blog (so, it's got to be a really good book, right?), I thought I'd return the favour!