Appearance
XBRL History
The history of XBRL from prototype to global standard.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 1998 | Charles Hoffman, CPA at Knight Vale and Gregory in Tacoma, Washington, begins investigating XML for electronic financial reporting |
| July 1998 | Hoffman informs Wayne Harding, Chairman of the AICPA High Tech Task Force |
| September 1998 | Hoffman briefs the AICPA High Tech Task Force -- by 10:00 AM they are convinced to pursue XML-based reporting |
| December 1998 | Prototype completed by Hoffman and Mark Jewett (Erutech) |
| January 1999 | Prototype presented to the AICPA |
| June 1999 | Business plan created, code-named XFRML (eXtensible Financial Reporting Markup Language) |
| August 1999 | AICPA announces creation of an XML financial reporting specification |
| October 1999 | First meeting of the XFRML Steering Committee at AICPA offices, New York City |
| April 2000 | Name officially changed from XFRML to XBRL |
| July 2000 | First specification released: "XBRL for Financial Statements" (US companies) |
| 2003 | [[03 XBRL Specifications |
| 2005 | SEC adopts XBRL |
| 2006 | 10 XBRL Dimensions 1.0 published |
| 2009 | SEC mandates XBRL for public company filings; 13 Inline XBRL specification developed |
| 2013 | Inline XBRL 1.1 published |
| 2016 | 12 Taxonomy Packages 1.0 published |
| 2018 | SEC updates mandate to require Inline XBRL instead of plain XBRL |
| 2020 | Extensible Enumerations 2.0 published |
| 2021 | xBRL-CSV and xBRL-JSON reach Recommendation status; OIM Common Definitions published |
| 2025 | 15 Open Information Model 1.0 reaches Recommendation status |
The Founder
Charles Hoffman is widely regarded as the father of XBRL. As a CPA, he understood the pain of manual financial data extraction and saw XML's potential to solve it. His persistence in championing the idea through the AICPA led to what is now a global standard used by regulators on every continent.
Key Milestone: From Financial to Business Reporting
The name change from XFRML to XBRL in April 2000 was significant -- it reflected the realisation that the standard could apply far beyond financial statements to all business reporting, including regulatory filings, tax returns, statistical data, and more.