Simply put, XBRL uses latest technology to enhance business reporting by defining a standard for financial statement presentation. XBRL Taxonomy is nothing but a mechanism for describing, naming and classifying items of business information in a document. In technical paralance, XBRL taxonomies are tag-lists which represent data structures. So you may ask why are these taxonomies required. XBRL taxonomies help in defining a common vocabulary of terms used in XBRL compatible documents.

XBRL Taxonomies thus include the following:

1. Definition of terms
2. Interrelationship between terms
3. Manner of display of terms
4. Descriptive data relating to terms

So what will you find in the taxonomy. To explain taking an example, XBRL taxonomies will contain business accounting terms such as cash flow, depreciation, assets etc. XBRL Taxonomy will define the four elements listed above for each of the terms. You can find the full set of taxonomy issued at the XBRL website in excel format here. I suggest you to also have a look at sample financial statements generated using the XBRL taxonomy. You find these sample fin statements in pdf format here. Companies are more likely to start using XBRL taxonomies for internal reporting purposes. As the concept catches up, it will be used for external reporitng as well. Taxonomies thus help both internal and external reporting.

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