XT algorithm for business data exchange

Abstract

Because of globalization, multinational firms tend to setup branches across nations for different functions, such as manufacturing lines in China, logistics in Asia, sales points in Europe etc. In order to communicate among each other, the industry has to adopt the same communication platform, use the same terms, and speak the same ldquolanguagerdquo. Therefore, in recent years, a new standardized computer language, eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), has been developing enhancing different organizations exchanging their financial data without re-enter them. XBRL is a relatively new technology. The research about XBRL instance transformation algorithm is not found yet. In this paper, we developed an algorithm to transform these data into XBRL-compliance format, so that we can take the advantages of XBRL. Our algorithm is named XBRL Transformer (XT). It includes two main modules, XT-Source2XML and XT-XML2XBRL. XT Source2XML transforms a source file, such as MS-Excel, Lotus 123, MS-Word, MS-Access, etc., to a corresponding XML file, and then it outputs the corresponding XML to the second tier, XT-XML2XBRL. After XT-XML2XBRL receives an XML file, it will transform it to XBRL instance file.