Communications Challenge, Not a Technical Challenge

XBRL-based digital financial reporting has, in my view, transitioned from a technical challenge to a communications challenge.

Here is why I say that.

In my book XBRL for Dummies which was published January 1, 2009, I pointed out that the global consultancy firm Gartner classified XBRL as a transformational technology.  Gartner defines transformational as something that "enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industry dynamics."

Personally, I believe that XBRL, along with RDF, will be a foundational change, not just transformational.  Harvard Business Review describes foundational as something that is highly novel and is highly complex.

XBRL-based digital financial reporting is obviously not an incremental (a.k.a. sustaining) innovation; it is at least a disruptive innovation as described by Clayton Christensen in Innovators Dilemma.  Personally, I believe that model-based reporting and semantic spreadsheets qualify as being both very useful and very novel.  There has not been one accountant that has told me that my Case for Semantic Oriented Accounting and Audit Working Papers is a bad idea. No one says that Special Purpose Logical Spreadsheets for Accountants is a bad idea.  

These new tools are not going to replace accountants, what they are going to do is eliminate a significant portion of the repetitive, mundane grunt work performed by accountants.  If you cut through all of the hype, you can see that modern accountancy will be created over the next 25 to 50 years.

Can this work? Well, determine that for yourself.  Here is a video playlist that shows my testing of Pacioli.ai's Luca Suite. I would contend that what you see is novel and it is certainly complex as it took me 25 years to figure out how to make what you see happen.  It might not look useful yet, but I say to you take the time to watch the 5 minute video that explains how disruptive innovations work.

The way the software works is that it leverages patterns of logic, machine readable rules, and a reasoning engine.  Here are additional examples in my Showcase of Reports.

There are many different ways to  implement "semantic spreadsheets" and "semantic accounting and audit working papers" that can work.  My experimentation and testing proves that. Pacioli.ai has made some significant enhancements to my ideas related to Web3.

A paradigm shift is not "going" to occur.  A paradigm shift has occurred.  Sure, most people are still using their old maps because they have not realized that the territory has changed and they need new maps.  They will end up being roadkill.

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