I have been fiddling around with what I call report frames. A report frame is a more flexible and expanded approach to making use of fundamental accounting concepts. In my initial approach, I had only one set of fundamental accounting concepts and I tried to fit every reporting entity into that one set. Now I have 126 sets! Why so many now? Because public companies report in different ways, using different "report frames". This blog post explains the permutations/combinations which I have notices.
What this achieves is make the impute rules easier to understand and allows more flexibility. Basically, there is not really one hierarchy, there are a number of different hierarchies.
You can get to the report frame index here. From there just click on the "count" to see the reporting entities which report a specific way. Read the Description. For example, this is the most popular report frame:
CI, balance sheet CLASSIFIED, redeemable noncontrolling interest NOT REPORTED, cash flow statement NORMAL, income statement MULTI-STEP, income (loss) from equity method investments NOT REPORTED, operating income (loss) REPORTED
You don't need to understand the codes such as "COMID-BSC-RNIXX-CF1-ISM-IEMIX-OILY". The code and the description say the same thing.
Stay tuned...more to come!