As I point out in the document Demystifying the Role of Ontologies in XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting:
In simple terms, ontology is about naming parts and processes and grouping those parts and processes together into categories. An ontology is a description of what exists within some field or domain; the parts and the relationship and hierarchy of the parts relative to one another. Why is ontology important? Ontologies help you think about a field or domain. Ontologies help you have precise discussions about challenging questions, to build theories, to construct models, to help you better understand the field or domain represented by the ontology.
This is a prototype of both human-readable and machine-readable information about a US GAAP classified balance sheet:
The information set is not complete. For example, I don't have formal class relations, I don't have formal roll up relations, I don't have formally defined properties that can be used to separate the "current" from the "noncurrent" items. There is a lot that I don't yet have. But, I have a starting point. I am going to figure out how to add all that other information.
It would be very hard for me to believe that this information is not helpful to accounting students, professional accountants creating private company financial reports, etc.
More to come...