Digital Financial Reporting

Continuing on with my endeavor to better understand XBRL as used in financial reporting, I have put together a Basic Example of an SEC XBRL Filingwhich is both compliant with the SEC XBRL rules and leverages the Business Reporting Logical Model.

What I am working toward is creating a Comprehensive Example-type modelof an SEC XBRL filing.

The truth is that the US GAAP Taxonomy inspired a lot of what went into the Business Reporting Logical Model. The Basic Example contains Hierarchy, Roll Up, Roll Forward, and a Compound Fact information models. Each of these information models is quite common in the US GAAP Taxonomy.  It is not surprising that the information models in the Business Reporting Logical Model map to the US GAAP Taxonomy; they actually come from the US GAAP Taxonomy.

If you are interested in taking a look at the Basic Example of an SEC XBRL Filing, follow the link above and just work from the top of the page to the bottom.

Why would you be interested in this Basic Example of an SEC XBRL Filing?

• To help you get good renderings in the SEC previewer and in the interactive data rendering in the EDGAR system.
• To help you train business users to create proper XBRL.  The Basic Example condenses the entire US GAAP Taxonomy into a hand full of meta patterns.  These meta patterns help hide the complexities of the XBRL syntax from business users. The example is simple, but it covers 90+ percent of what you would ever run up against in creating SEC XBRL filings.  If you can create this example, you can move to the next "level" of XBRL expertise.  If you cannot create this Basic Example, your foundation is not solid.  This example helps build the right foundation.
• This example is a great use case to test software.  The example is small enough to be able to be created in a short period of time, yet it has enough complexity to exercise software applications. Rather than use a software vendor's canned demos, ask software vendors to model this basic information in an XBRL taxonomy and XBRL instance.  It will help you see how that software will work.
• For professors teaching XBRL in their accounting classes, this is a good, solid example which will help your students get their heads around XBRL.

The meta patterns, business use cases, comprehensive example, and comparison exampleare coming for US GAAP Taxonomy and SEC XBRL filings. While the Business Reporting Logical Model Examples are quite useful, many people cannot make the leap from those examples to how the same ideas can be applied to using the US GAAP Taxonomy and creating SEC XBRL filings.