Conducted on behalf of XBRL-US by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the survey indicates that vendors believe the demand for XBRL functionality within accounting software is on the rise. Oracle, Microsoft, Hyperion, SAP, PeopleSoft, ACCPAC, JD Edwards and Cartesis were among those tapped for the survey.

"As the demand for enhanced business reporting through higher quality, more transparent and timely information increases, the need for technology that enables better reporting also increases," said Paul Penler, Principal, Ernst & Young and chair of the XBRL-US Adoption Committee. "XBRL is the solution, and this survey indicates that many XBRL-enabled applications are available to users now and considerably more will be developed during the next 18 months. Accounting software vendors perceive an increase in the demand and are making the investment now to XBRL-enable their tools in order to meet the needs of information users."

The survey goes on to show that accounting software vendors have initially focused development efforts on products that output/export XBRL-formatted data -- XBRL import functions will come later. Fourteen of the vendors surveyed indicated that their applications will initially include an XBRL export function, a natural evolution of the acceptance of XBRL in the marketplace.

The first step in the process is to enable software to output XBRL data, and as market demand progresses, applications that can efficiently and accurately import and consume XBRL-tagged information will be developed as organizations begin to automate many of their business reporting processes.

"Our survey also indicates that accounting software vendors with software for larger companies are setting the pace in the push to XBRL-enable accounting applications," added Louis Matherne, President of XBRL International. "What's encouraging is we've already seen that about 90 percent of the accounting software vendors serving larger companies are XML-enabled and that many are being readied for XBRL functionality."