To demonstrate the capabilities of the API, XBRL US maintains a database of public company data which has been reported to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in either the US GAAP or IFRS taxonomies. This database will contain information from more countries by early 2019, including Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan. This will provide an opportunity for interested parties to test the API as a user-friendly standard to access vast amounts of timely, highly granular financial data from around the world.

The new API should provide tools to simplify and streamline access to machine-readable data by both casual data users and commercial providers. It includes customizable spreadsheets with pre-formatted queries to allow users to easily generate reports in addition to accessing the XBRL data. XBRL US has also documented the API and its queries to aid programmers in developing their own applications. Finally, XBRL US has established an XBRL Data Community to encourage ongoing discussion between developers and data users.

XBRL US held a free webinar about the API that provided a walk-through of the API and other tools available to XBRL US members and the general public. You can watch the full webinar for free by visiting https://xbrl.us/events/20181212/. The XBRL Data Community is available here.

Sources:

XBRL US Introduces Proposed API Standard, Streamlining Access to Structured Financial Data (xbrl.us)
XBRL Application Programming Interface (API) (xbrl.us)