Linking XBRL Financial Data Roberto García, Rosa Gil Abstract. One of the main ways of populating the Web of Data is by translating exist- ing data sources. One interesting candidate for this approach is data based on the eX- tensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), a standard for business and financial reporting. Many institutions are making available or requiring data in this format, e.g. the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through the EDGAR program. However, XBRL data is loosely interconnected and it is difficult to mix and query it. Our contribution is a translation from XBRL filings to Semantic Web technologies, which we have applied to more than 1000 filings obtaining more than 2 million tri- ples. The resulting semantic data is easier to integrate and cross query. Moreover, it can be interconnected with the rest of the Web of Data in order to extract its full po- tential. 1. Introduction The main way to populate the Web of Data is by translating existing data sources. The motivation to do so is that usually this data is not offering its full potential because it is isolated, i.e. not connected to other external pieces of data that enrich them. It might even be the case that the data is loosely interconnected internally. Most of the time this is due to the fact that the technological solutions used to publish that data do not make it easy to interconnect it internally and to other external data sources. Business reporting is a domain where the need for a common data format for re- ports has already been identified. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an XML language intended for modelling, exchanging and automatically processing business and financial information. XBRL is being deployed in many different sce- narios, especially thanks to the support of some regulators and government agencies. For instance, there is the EDGAR 1 program promoted by the U.S. Securities and Ex- change Commission (SEC). It performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance and forwarding of submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the SEC. It has evolved from a voluntary program and now there is a mandate for a three years phase-in schedule starting 2009 with companies with public float over $5 billion R. García Universitat de Lleida. Jaume II, 69. 25001 Lleida, Spain e-mail: rgarcia@diei.udl.cat 1 Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system, http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml