Financial Reporting under XBRL and the Impact on the Financial Audit

The purpose of this paper is to present the perspectives of using XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) as a tool for financial auditors considering the increasing coverage of this language for financial reporting. We performed an extensive literature review concerning XBRL utilisation in Europe and in the US and identified several key areas where this technology may be extended in order to facilitate the planning phase of a financial audit. We propose adding several XML tags to the standard taxonomies that would include information which is usefull for auditors. This information may be account-specific (such as significant risks affecting an account or classes of transactions affecting the account) or may relate to the audied entity as a whole. Our conclusion is that XBRL may be successfully extended in order to contain data that may aid auditors in the planning phase of their engagements.