Theory of Model Structure

Years ago I posed a hypothesis that financial statement report models of XBRL-based reports follow specific logical patterns.  After significant testing, between 2015 and about 2018, I have reached the conclusion that my hypothesis was correct and now I have my theory of model structure.

Here are many of the best details related to my testing, poking, and prodding and prototypes that I constructed to test my hypothesis:

Note that the XBRL technical specification provides no information with respect to the organization of the report model of an XBRL-based report when it comes to XBRL presentation relations.

An analysis of 6,751 XBRL-based reports (see page 23) submitted to the SEC, all of which were 10-Ks, had a total of 6,142,578 associations between report elements in the report models which were used to represent the information reported in the XBRL-based financial report.  Of that total, 99.99% of the associations were unambiguous and the logic could be understood and 0.01% (650 associations) were illogical and/or ambiguous.

These report elements could be grouped into the following classes or categories: network, table (a.k.a. hypercube), axis (a.k.a. dimension), member, lineitems, abstract, concept.  A report element could be a parent or a child in the relation. The table below breaks down these associations.  Ambiguous and/or illogical associations are shown in ORANGE and add up to the total 650 illogical/ambiguous associations.

Note that the two yellow cells show associations which are not good practice and thus should be avoided.

It may appear that getting these relations correct is easy and obvious.  However, the US GAAP XBRL Taxonomy and IFRS XBRL Taxonomy use different schemes for organizing the report model.  Why is that?  What business reason is there for that difference?

Additional Information:

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