Publishing XBRL as Linked Open Data

The XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a standard for business and financial information reporting. It is based on XML so instance documents based on XBRL, e.g. a quarterly report, are highly constrained by the XML document-oriented nature. This makes more difficult to perform queries that mix information from filings from different dates, companies, or accounting principles than with a formalism based on a graph model instead of a tree model. Semantic Web technologies provide a graph model that facilitates mashing-up different XBRL sources. We have put into practice this approach mapping the XBRL filings available from the SEC’s EDGAR program to Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the XML Schema taxonomies these filings are based on to Web Ontology Language (OWL). The resulting semantic metadata, though highly tied to the XML structure it is mapped from, benefits from Semantic Web technologies and tools in order to facilitate integration and crossquerying, even together with other parts of the Web of Linked Data.