Intelligent XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting

(NOTE THAT THIS PAGE HAS BEEN SUPERCEDED BY Mastering XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting. Please use that new resource!)

Everything you would ever want to know about  intelligent XBRL-based digital financial reporting in one place!

Information provided on this blog for over 20 years related to XBRL was accumulated, organized, refactored, summarized, analyzed, evaluated, synthesized; this resource will help you understand how to effectively make use of XBRL for financial reporting.  The resource is not perfect yet and is still a work in progress; but it is pretty good.  Note that all of this material is considered property of the public domain.

Pedagogy is about creating an educational process that will lead to knowledge transfer to a learner. Over time, I will better organize this information about the factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive information you need to understand XBRL-based digital financial reporting. Wheter you are a novice, beginner, competent, profecient, or an expert; this information will help you wrap your head around XBRL-based digital financial reporting.  I will keep organizing this information better so keep checking back and watch this resource improve!

Follow this YouTube channel for more information: Digital Financial Reporting

If you want to master XBRL-based financial reporting, follow this page: Mastering XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting.

Individual chapters:

  • Part 0 - Introduction
  • Part 1 - Foundation for Understanding: Background, Framework, Theory, Principles
  • Part 2 - Conceptual Model of a Digital Financial Report
  • Part 3 - Working with Digital Financial Reports
  • Part 4 - Examples and Samples
  • Part 5 - Important Technical and Other Details
  • Other Information Related to Leveraging XBRL for Accounting Process Automation and Automating Reporting Processes
    • Demystifying the Role of Ontologies in XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting: Artificial intelligence (AI) is brought to life by machine-readable metadata such as ontologies.  Understand exactly how to create high-quality ontologies which supercharge software applications.
    • Leveraging the Theoretical and Mathematical Underpinnings of a Financial Report: This document explains the theoretical and mathematical underpinnings of double-entry accounting and financial reports.  A financial report is a graph of facts.  That graph of facts includes transactions, events, circumstances, and other phenomenon of an economic entity that fits into two categories: things that went through the general ledger (double-entry) and things that did NOT go through the general ledger (single-entry).
    • Chain of Capabilities Necessary to Automate Accounting Processes: As the notion of irreducible complexity points out, there is a chain of capabilities that must be mastered in order to effectively and reliably automate accounting processes.  I provide a precise list of the capabilities that are necessary to master, but I am not 100% certain that the list is sufficient.  The first software vendor that masters this chain of capabilities, understands the Law of Conservation of Complexity, and creates functional software that is truly usable by professional accountants will win big.
    • General Ledger Trial Balance to External Financial Report: This document summarizes a basic example of putting all the pieces together to go from a general ledger to an external financial report for all the transactions that flow through the general journal to the general ledger.  All those pieces fit together.  What this example does not show is the transactions, events, circumstances, and other phenomenon that does not flow through the general journal and general ledger.
    • Introducing the Fact Ledger: Accountants understand HOW to do double-entry accounting; but what I am seeing is that many accountants, including myself, don't understand WHY they use double-entry accounting.  Maybe it was never explained to them.  Maybe they forgot.  For me, I don't know if it slipped my mind.  The fact ledger leverages the ideas of the ledger and the journal to create machine-readable versions of those to important tools of accounting.
    • Accounting Process Automation XBRL Appliction Profile: An efficient, effective, safe, and reliable approach to implementing accounting process automation leveraging the XBRL global standard technical syntax.
    • Open Source Framework for Implementing XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting: A framework for representing metadata using the XBRL technical syntax which enables the creation of a software ecosystem which supports high function and automated quality control.
    • Blueprint for Creating Zero-defect XBRL-based Digital Financial Reports: Explains how to use automated and manual processes professional accountants need to evaluate and measure the quality of an XBRL-based financial report.
  • Other Information Not Yet Incorporated Above
  • Information Specifically for Software Engineers Building Software

    • Download the entire resource: Intelligent XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting (please contact me)

    Please send comments, ideas, suggestions, and other feedback to me if you like.