Cooking With Gas: How Working with XBRL SHOULD BE and Now IS WORKING

(While this example in the video shows editing an XBRL-based financial report, what syntax you uses is unimportant…what you see could work using any standard physical syntax; XBRL, RDF/OWL/SHACL, GSQL, SQL.  What makes the MAGIC that you see happen is the logical conceptualization that the software that does the work uses and the RULES that conform to that logic that drives the software.  Any syntax will work, and in fact any logic will work…but in this case you MUST follow the universal logic of a roll forward that every accountant understands.)

So NOW, after 15 years of trying to get this done, it now works as I would expect and as accountants worldwide would expect.  The 4 minute and 30 second video referenced below walks you through:

  1. Adding a new change to a roll forward.
  2. Adjusting the presentation relations for that change.
  3. Adjusting the definition relations for that change.
  4. Adjusting the XBRL Formula that articulates the rule for that change.
  5. A “daemon” that watches the math of the report that lurks in the background NOTICES the inconsistency and reports it (because an incorrect concept was added).
  6. Generating a report has that added report element in it (i.e. the report was automatically adjusted).
  7. Then I “undo” all of the above by REMOVING the report element “Revenues” from the “Changes in Equity” structure (because it does not belong there).
  8. Removed from XBRL presentation relations.
  9. Removed from XBRL definition relations.
  10. Removed from XBRL formula.
  11. Daemon lurking in the background tells you that the math now works (i.e. the inconsistency goes away).
  12. Generate the report and that line item that was added has now been removed.

Nothing is “hard” or “technical”.  Starting to work like magic, the software user works with logic, not some artifact related to technical syntax.  And this is ONLY THE BEGINNING!

But, it is really not magic.  What looks like magic is the proper creation of the base financial reporting taxonomy, properly created software, properly created rules engine that drives the lurking software daemon, and a proper logical model that describes all this so that you understand how to build the taxonomy, create the software, write the rules.

DEMO: Editing Digital Report Model, Not "XBRL" (Cooking With Gas)

If you contrasted what you see in that video with what accountants have to do now to add a new line item to a roll forward then it would make more sense why what you see in that video is so compelling.

Think TurboTax on steroids including the capabilities to edit a report model within specific “guardrails” or “permitted boundaries”.  Again, this is ONLY THE BEGINNING.  There is way, way, way more to come.  All complements of Luca Pacioli and his global standard double entry bookkeeping method, a logical theory that describes important aspects of that model to software applications, the global standard XBRL technical syntax, and clever/creative software engineers that have buried the complexity of all this in the background of the software platform and the software interface that users use to get to this functionality.

Thank you Luca Pacioli!

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