This blog post provides information related to the analysis of the Microsoft 2017 10-K. This has to do with controlling the process of creating the report and analyzing information the report contains. This is information about the report:
Most current prototype:
This XBRL-based report contains 194 sets of facts which I used to call "blocks" and now I think I call "fact sets". For this report, I can identify 94.8% of those 194 sets of facts. This is important because (a) the rules can be used to make sure the report is created correctly and (b) the rules can be used to effectively and reliably extract information from the report.
I am comparing the Microsoft 10-K to the 10-Ks of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Salesforce. The primary thing I am noticing is the propencity of accountants to focus on the presentation of information which is arbitrary/subjective and the representation of information which tends to be objective.
Also, I have completely recast the Microsoft 10-K in order to be able to control some things and perform some additional testing. You might find that helpful.