• XML was designed to describe data, and to focus on what data is.
• HTML was designed to display data, and to focus on how data looks.
• XML is designed to work with HTML, a complement to HTML.
• XML is a cross-platform, software and hardware independent tool for transmitting information.
• XML was designed to store, carry, and exchange data.

• XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language
• XML is a markup language much like HTML
• XML was designed to describe data and to carry data
• XML was not designed to DO anything. XML is created to structure, store, and to send information.
• XML tags are not predefined, you must define your own tags
• XML uses a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an XML Schema to describe the data
• XML with a DTD or XML Schema is designed to be self-descriptive

• external to the HTML file (in another file) , this way you can concentrate on using HTML for data layout and display, and be sure that changes in the underlying data will not require any changes to your HTML, OR
• inside HTML pages as "Data Islands". You can still concentrate on using HTML only for formatting and displaying the data.

With XML, financial information can be exchanged over the Internet. We should expect to see a lot about XML in B2B (Business To Business) applications in the near future. XML is expected to be the main language for exchanging financial information between businesses over the Internet. Many interesting B2B applications are under development.

XML can also be used to store data in files or in databases. Applications can be written to store and retrieve information.

With XML, your data is available to more users. Since XML is independent of hardware, software and application, you can make your data available to other browser, just HTML browsers. Other clients and applications can access your XML files as data sources, as if they are accessing databases. Your data can be made available to all kinds of "reading machines" (agents).

XML is the mother of Wireless Markup Language (WML). WML is used to markup Internet applications for handheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs. XML may be used to create other new languages.

The future might give us word processors, spreadsheet applications and databases that can read each other's data in a pure text format, without any conversion utilities in between.

This source states that the syntax rules of XML are very simple and very strict. The rules are very easy to learn, and very easy to use. Because of this, creating software that can read and manipulate XML is very easy to do. Note XML tags are case sensitive, unlike HTML which is not case sensitive. XML elements must be properly nested. All XML documents must contain a single root element, and all other elements must be nested within the root element. All elements can have sub elements (children). Sub elements must be correctly nested within their parent element. Elements that belong to the same parent are called siblings.

There is nothing complicated about XML. It is just plain text with the addition of some XML tags enclosed in angle brackets. Software that can handle plain text can also handle XML. In a simple text editor, the XML tags will be visible and will not be handled specially. In an XML-aware application however, the XML tags can be handled specially. The tags may or may not be visible, or have a functional meaning, depending on the nature of the application.

XML was initially developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and they are currently working with Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to developed the standards of XML.

• Enable internationalized media-independent electronic publishing.
• Allow industries to define platform-independent protocols for the exchange of data, especially the data of electronic commerce.
• Deliver information to user agents in a form that allows automatic processing after receipt.
• Make it easier to develop software to handle specialized information distributed over the Web.
• Make it easy for people to process data using inexpensive software.
• Allow people to display information the way they want it, under style sheet control.
• Make it easier to provide metadata -- data about information -- that will help people find information and help information producers and consumers find each other.

XML describes a class of data objects called XML documents and partially describes the behavior of computer programs which process them. XML is an application profile or restricted form of SGML. In addition to uses listed in bullets above XML is also intended for one-on-one marketing, workflow management in collaborative authoring environments, and the processing of Web documents by intelligent clients. XML is fully internationalized for both European and Asian languages. XML is designed for the quickest possible client-side processing.

XML documents are made up of storage units called entities, which contain either parsed or unparsed data. Parsed data is made up of characters, some of which form the character data in the document, and some of which form markup. Markup encodes a description of the document's storage layout and logical structure. XML provides a mechanism to impose constraints on the storage layout and logical structure. A software module called an XML processor is used to read XML documents and provide access to their content and structure. It is assumed that an XML processor is doing its work on behalf of another module, called the application. This specification describes the required behavior of an XML processor in terms of how it must read XML data and the information it must provide to the application.

• Is a standards-based method with which users can prepare, publish (in a variety of formats), exchange and analyze financial statements and the information they contain.
• Is freely licensed, permits the automatic exchange and reliable extraction of financial information across all software formats and technologies, including the Internet.
• Ultimately benefits all users of the financial information supply chain: public and private companies, the accounting profession, regulators, analysts, the investment community, capital markets and lenders, as well as key third parties such as software developers and data aggregators.
• Does not require a company to disclose any additional information beyond that which they normally disclose under existing accounting standards. Does not require a change to existing accounting standards.
• Improves access to financial information/speeds up access
• Reduces need to enter financial information more than one time, reducing the risk of data entry error and eliminating the need to manually key information for various formats, (printed financial statement, an HTML document for a company’s Web site, an EDGAR filing document, a raw XML file or other specialized reporting formats such as credit reports and loan documents) thereby lowering a company's cost to prepare and distribute its financial statements while simultaneously improving investor or analyst access to information.
• Leverages efficiencies of the Internet as today’s primary source of financial information by making Web browser searches more accurate and relevant. (More than 80% of major US public companies provide some type of financial disclosure on the Internet.)
• XBRL meets the needs of today's investors and other users of financial information by providing accurate and reliable information to help them make informed financial decisions.

• Financial Statements - financial statements of all sorts used to communicate financial information
• Taxes -specification for tax returns which are filed and information exchanged for items which end up on tax returns
• Regulatory Filings - specifications for the large number of filings required by government and regulatory bodies
• Accounting and Business Reports - management and accounting reporting such as all the reports that are created by your accounting system rendered in XML to make re-using them possible
• Authoritative Literature - a standard way for describing accounting related authoritative literature published by the AICPA, FASB, ASB, and others to make using these resources easier, "drill downs" into literature from financials possible