I see four reasons why Denmark is one of the leading nations within XBRL, let me explain;
1. Political backup
From the very beginning, there has been an ambition and strategy from Danish authorities that XBRL should be a fixed standard in the future in Denmark. Not only within the Danish Business Authority, that clearly has shown the way and been the driving authority, showing innovation and ambitions. But also the Danish FSA, Tax authorities (SKAT) and Statistics Denmark have expressed that they will adopt and use the XBRL standard. At the time of writing, only SKAT has not yet adopted the XBRL standard for the submission of data.
On April 7, 2011, the Parliament resolved that Class B companies with a balance sheet date from January 31, 2012 onwards should submit their annual reports in XBRL together with a PDF file. By this Denmark took the lead and paved the way for the many benefits that can be derived from digitally structured accounting data, including free access to all accounting data via cvr.dk.
2. A proactive XBRL association
XBRL Denmark was founded in May 2004 (with financial support from the political side). The purpose of the association is to promote and disseminate knowledge of XBRL in Denmark. This has been done by the association by holding trade fairs, events, information meetings and the last few years is “XBRL Nordic”, an event which the association organizes has become an entry point where the market, authorities and marketers from all over the world come to Denmark to follow the development and the latest in XBRL.
3. The Nordic model.
Talking about software, development and general digitization, the Nordic countries are leading in many respects. This has been manifested in the development of XBRL in Denmark and the products and solutions Danish companies have developed and brought to the market. In addition, Danish auditors, authorities and software houses have also demonstrated how adaptive, reactive, agile and innovative Nordic companies are in software, digitization and more importantly the execution of digital standards.
4. The enthusiasts
One of the most important reasons why XBRL has been successful is the fiery souls who have been on the journey and kept the course and the tabs high in hardship and hardship. These include the chairmen we have had in XBRL Denmark, who in every way have made a great effort (formerly Lars Dyrner and today Poul Kjær) and on the authority side we have some very ambitious, innovative and courageous people who have really moved mountains, among other things the Danish Business Authority, Niels-Peter Rønmos and Lise Fode have been on target and made some incredibly difficult decisions that have borne fruit.
