XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting

So, you have all your information in the form of a knowledge graph.  Now, you want to process all that information.  What is the best way to do that?  This blog post is information that I have collected related to that task. First, what exactly are you trying to achieve? Or another way of saying this; what are the constraints and what is your definition of "best"?  Here are my constraints: Expressive power : the more you can do the better. Safety : you want the solution you are using to always return an answer as opposed to the system  having a catastrophic failure such as getting into an infinite loop, not returning a discernable answer, or something like that; the safer the better. Speed : you want the information returned quickly; and the quicker the better. So those are the constraints for my definition of "best". Second, what exactly do I want expressed?  Well, the answer would be "everything".  But, that one big group is not really that useful....

Just as accounting has formal semantics (assets, liabilities, equity, comprehensive income, investment by owner, distribution to owner, revenues, expenses, gains, losses) and an algebra (assets = liabilities + equity; beginning equity + comprehensive income + investment by owners - distribution to owners); governance can be viewed as having its own semantics and algebra. This same perspective is emerging in fields such as policy-as-code, computational law, enterprise modeling, defensible compliance, and governance frameworks. Semantic Model of Governance A semantic model identifies the fundamental concepts of a domain and the meaning of those fundamental concepts. For governance, the core question is: How do rights, obligations, authority, and accountability exist, change, and interact within an enterprise? Rather than viewing governance as a collection of isolated rules, a semantic approach views governance as a structured state of affairs consisting of: Knowledge (what is known; tr...

Arguably, the electronic spreadsheet is one of the most flexible end-user information systems ever created. In many organizations, the electronic spreadsheet is not just a spreadsheet; it is a database, reporting engine, modeling platform, workflow tool, a planning application, a project management tool, a calculation engine, dashboard system, integration layer, and sometimes important critical aspects of an ERP system that the ERP system simply cannot itself handle well. Most organizations rely on spreadsheets for their most important operational activities, including budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, reconciliations, and performance management. Yet these critical processes are often built on tools that were designed to be maximally flexible rather than operationally controlled. The electronic spreadsheet's greatest strength is its almost unlimited adaptability, but that same flexibility introduces risk when spreadsheets become systems of record upon which organizations...

This blog post provides a walk through of the Accounting & Audit by Design (A&AD) Framework from 50,000 feet. It shows the moving puzzle pieces. Financial Reporting Framework A&AD relates to financial reporting.  And for financial reporting, you need a financial reporting framework. This blog post, Theory of Financial Reporting Framework  explains what a financial reporting framework is. For A&AD, the financial reporting framework is provided in digital form. Here is a working proof of concept financial reporting framework that I have created and will be using for this walk through.  I am providing three versions of this framework which I call my MINI Financial Reporting Framework. Here is a simple, very basic HTML page that shows the financial reporting framework. Here is a link to a commercial software application that can be used to have a look at the MINI Financial Reporting Framework. And finally, here is a link to that MINI Financial Reporting Fra...

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) which is part of the Department of Labor oversees the following number of benefit plans which cover 155 million workers, retirees, and dependents: (approximately) 2,800,000 health benefit plans,  837,000 private pension plans,  521,000 other welfare benefit plans Of all those benefit plans, somewhere between about 80,000 and 100,000 are required to be audited. Here are some tools and services for complying with the employee benefit plan audit requirement: Fieldguide  (audit) Oath  (audit) Employee benefits compliance software and services Nearly all ERISA-covered employee benefit plans must satisfy some Form 5500 reporting requirement, but only a subset must include audited financial statements. The plan administrator or plan sponsor is responsible for compliance reporting; but an industry of several thousand third party plan administrators, a handful of benefits consulting firms, a handful of benefit plan recordke...

The Atomic Design Methodology is a very useful way to think about "graphs" and "digital" and "information" and "models".  Tools that a business professional will use need to be special purpose tools not general purpose tools.  Below you see a set of financial reporting frameworks that start small then grow larger and more complex and sophisticated.  But the foundation , the fundamental model  of each is the same. Rather than end up with a kludge ; I have consciously attempted to remove all possible accidental complexity from my Seattle Method framework.  All of these working proof of concepts are available on GitHub . You can also see actual reports using the reporting frameworks in my set of reference implementations of reports . Here are some things to fiddle with to help accountants, auditors, and analysts think about how to work with digital information: ( To see the specific view I am showing, from the hierarchy on the LEFT, in the "...