News Releases

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The University of Kansas School of Business is hosting the fifth International Conference on XBRL April 28 – 30 in the Kansas City metro area. The conference, which focuses on the financial reporting technology eXtensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, will bring in more than 55 participants and speakers from the around the world.

“The KU School of Business has played an important role in the research and development of XBRL technology since its inception,” said Conference Director and Ernst & Young Professor Rajendra Srivastava.

XBRL technology allows companies to tag business information which makes the creation, dissemination and processing of that information more efficient and cost effective for companies.

Representatives from the largest accounting firms in the world, such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, as well as financial regulation groups, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, will be in attendance.

People from the business and academic realms are interested in XBRL technology because the SEC already mandates some companies to report their finances using the technology. There has also been talk that those mandates may be applied to all U.S. companies in ensuing years.

This year’s conference will specifically be focusing on the transparency, assurance and analysis of XBRL technology. These topics are imperative to continuing the integration of XBRL technology into companies’ reporting processes according to Srivastava.

Srivastava, who is also director of the School of Business’ Ernst & Young Center for Auditing Research and Advanced Technology, has been working with XBRL technology for almost 15 years. He specifically works with the technology when combining it with the Center’s Financial Reporting and Auditing Agent with Net Knowledge, or FRAANK technology.