hTrade

hTrade

hTrade is a proposed new microformat that would provide a common means of representing financial transactions.

Introduction

There are many examples of financial transactions across the web and in desktop applications, including bank statements, purchase receipts, wishlists, PFM applications, etc. A standardized format would facilitate integration between vendors, financial institutions and applications to provide for far more robust financial accounting integration.

Format

There are many data formats used in financial systems to represent transactions. The vast majority of these are proprietary, typically resulting from an evolution from paper-based accounting to mainframe computing to electronic interchange networks to the web and now to mobile systems.

A simple semantic format using (like hCard) object/property names in lower-case for class names. Financial transaction attributes would be mapped to nested XHTML elements.

To Dos

• Complete survey of financial transaction attributes
• Draft