Had great meeting with Big 4 firm yesterday who shared some interesting stats.

Based on a survey of 150 FTSE Tax Directors
-67% of Accounts are prepared in Word or Excel
-44% of the businesses surveyed will seek advice directly from their Tax Advisor how to proceed with iXBRL

And most interestingly...

-4% have chosen an iXBRL solution.

This is one of the most entertaining explanations of any IT related topic I've seen in a while and transcends the language barrier.  Useful for most UK clients too!

http://www.hp.jicpa.or.jp/english/xbrl/index.html?width=720&height=680

Does anybody care about the ability to add extra formatting in the iXBRL documents any more or is it all about compliance now?  In mid-2009, the appearance of iXBRL to include logos, colours and special fonts to create the same look and feel of the printed "glossy" accounts version was rated as "very important" by Directors of HMRC.  In fact one year on, the appearance of the document is still important (the inline presentation is of course essential), but the demand for logos and graphics has all but disappeared.  One client was happy to see the graphs appear in the Notes to the Accounts successfully appear in the iXBRL output but the iXBRL document has a long way to go before it takes the place of the glossy.  Designers and publishers, your jobs look to be safe for now.

Are you a charity that wants to know more about iXBRL and integration of your systems?  Come along and see us at the Annual CFDG conference where we'll be doing a lunchtime workshop.    http://www.cfdg.org.uk/cfdg/conf2010home.asp