Analysis of Document and Entity Information Across SEC XBRL Filers
Friday, July 19, 2013 at 12:29PM
Charlie in Becoming an XBRL Master Craftsman, Creating Investor Friendly SEC XBRL Filings

The Edgar Filer Manual (EFM) is a great first step, but it is not adequate to create rational, sensible, and logical SEC XBRL financial filings.

This Analysis of Document and Entity Information across 12 SEC XBRL Financial filers points out very common types of rather clear inconsistencies and contradictions found in not only the document and entity information section; but these same sorts of issues exist in virtually ever report component of SEC XBRL financial filings.

Here is one example.  If you look at the SEC Document and Entity Information (DEI) Taxonomy you will see that the SEC provides three specific [Table]s for representing this information:

Yet, not one of the 12 SEC filers analyzed breaks the information out in this manner.  They simply pack all the information into one explicitly defined [Table] or implied table.  What that causes is facts such as "Entity Registrant Name" and "Document Type" having characteristics such as "Class of Stock [Axis]" which makes no sense at all.

The crack down is coming.  Don't let SEC XBRL financial filings which you are involved with stand out in a bad day. If you find this analysis helpful, you may also want to check out the following additional information which will help you become an XBRL master craftsman:

 

Article originally appeared on XBRL-based structured digital financial reporting (http://xbrl.squarespace.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.