Good Practices XBRL-based Report Repository

I have put together a good practices based repository of XBRL-based reports to show how to build such repositories and understand how to effectively extract information from XBRL-based report repositories.

Here is my repository:

There are currently four reports in the XBRL-based report repository but I want to get the set of reports up to maybe 10 or 20.  The primary purpose of creating this is to (a) show people how to build such repositories, (b) explain to people how to effectively extract information from such repositories, and (c) test software applications that are built to extract information from such XBRL-based machine readable report information repositories.

One important thing to note is that each of the four reports uses a different combination of balance sheet and income statement styles.  There is a net assets, classified, and liquidity based balance sheets.  There are income statements by function and by nature.  This helps one understand the notion of reporting styles and how that impacts extracting information from the financial reports.

Attached to that repository page is another important page which is the base financial reporting scheme that is used for preparing reports that would go into the repository.

Here is the base financial reporting scheme:

A very important thing to understand is that there is a correlation between the quality of the base financial reporting scheme representation and the ability to extract information from the reports created using that financial reporting scheme.  A big part of the reason it can be hard to extract information from XBRL-based reports is because the supporting base financial reporting scheme and report models are substandard.

A I explain in the Essence of Accounting, financial reports are not forms. Nor will financial reports ever be standard forms.  Financial reports are knowledge graphs. Those knowledge graphs are customizable by reporting entities that create reports, but any such customizations must stay within permitted boundaries of the financial reporting rules, mathematics, and logic.

Because of these customizations it is more work extracting information from the XBRL-based reports.  Further, those creating the base financial reporting schemes can do things that make extracting information easier.

When a base financial reporting scheme clearly specifies the disclosures that are required, when reporting economic entities create reports per that clear specification, and when all that information is put into machine readable form and used to verify that reports, in fact, follow that clear specification; then a very useful system results which causes a virtuous cycle.

However, when flaws such as ambiguity, math errors, and other such imperfections make there way into this system then problems occur.

More information that explains the example referenced that I am holding out as a good practices example of quality XBRL-based financial reports and repositories of machine readable report information.

Additional resources:

• Creation of Base Financial Reporting Scheme Models and Report Models
• Other example dashboards of reports
• Other general purpose financial reporting scheme prototypes
• Financial Report Knowledge Graphs
• PROOF Repository
• Fundamental Accounting Concepts and Reporting Styles
• US GAAP Test Data
• IFRS Test Data
• FDIC Central Data Repository
• Washington State Auditor Financial Information Tool