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XBRL: eXtensible Business Reporting Language - a standard for electronic business financial reporting; from 1 April 2011, you must submit your Corporation Tax for any accounting period electronically; and from then, for any accounting period ending after 31 March 2010, you must also file your Company Tax Return (including supporting documentation) online (iXBRL)
Inline XBRL (iXBRL): a way of embedding and displaying accounting/financial information in an HTML document, the universal language for web browsers. It allows data to be presented in a readable form, either on screen or in printed output.

The idea behind XBRL, eXtensible Business Reporting Language, is simple. Instead of treating financial information as a block of text - as in a standard internet page or a printed document - it provides an identifying tag for each individual item of data. This is computer readable. For example, company net profit has its own unique tag.
The introduction of XBRL tags enables automated processing of business information by computer software, cutting out laborious and costly processes of manual re-entry and comparison. Computers can treat XBRL data "intelligently": they can recognise the information in a XBRL document, select it, analyse it, store it, exchange it with other computers and present it automatically in a variety of ways for users. XBRL greatly increases the speed of handling of financial data, reduces the chance of error and permits automatic checking of information.

Companies can use XBRL to save costs and streamline their processes for collecting and reporting financial information. Consumers of financial data, including investors, analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can receive, find, compare and analyse data much more rapidly and efficiently if it is in XBRL format.