Financial Reporting Using XBRL

The IFRS Taxonomy Modules Manager (ITMM) which is available here.  I would encourage business users to take a look at this as it provides some insights for business users.

What the ITMM is trying to do is pull the pieces of a taxonomy together which a preparer would use to construct a business report, likely a financial statement.  The user makes use of the application to select the pieces and then the application builds the underlying XBRL "stuff" (it is called a discoverable taxonomy set or DTS, but business users should not have to understand this level of terminology) which will be used to create an XBRL instance document (an XBRL based business report).

What is good about this is that it shows something very important to realize, particularly if you are a business user.  This important point is that software can be built to do things like this.  All a software application has to do is spit out the required XBRL.  How it gets there is up to the software application.  Don't like how the software application works in terms of features?  Just give the feedback to the software developers, they can make it better.

Some features I would like to see related to this are:

1. Business users don't need stand alone systems like this, they need this functionallity within the tool being used to create the XBRL based business report.
2. Smart wizards which know what sorts of things might go together, nor never go together, would certainly help the user out.  For example, the user is generally going to want ONE cash flow statement, not even be able to select both for one report.
3. Generate "templates" of the common stuff which is used, but the business user can then "turn on" or "turn off" pieces of the taxonomy, rather than have to wade through the entire taxonomy.

These are just a few obvious features.  This list is not knocking what the folks at the IASCF are doing, but rather trying to help business users understand the types of things they could, and should, be asking for from software.

I have realized something which has caused a change in thinging.  XBRLS really should be two pieces, not one piece.  Right now, XBRLS combines an architecture and a modeling layer.  There are benefits to having these two pieces separate.

The benefit of an architecture layer is that you can constrain the generally too numerious options offered by XBRL.  You can also remove unnecessary and undesirable flexibility which exists within XBRL, making your system easier to build and use.

The modeling layer helps build your taxonomy consistently, helps users of the taxonomy understand the taxonomy easier, allows for software to be created more easily and enables the creation of features which make it easier for a business user to create, use, and report against a taxonomy.

While all systems need some sort of architecture and some sort of modeling layer; separating the two allows for reuse of the architecture.  I am not sure if a modeling layer would be usable if it were moved to a different architecture, have not thought about that much and have not really experimented with this idea much.

More information on what a modeling layer is, its benefits, and how to create one coming soon!  Stay tuned.

This is one of the coolest and most useful features I have seen in a LONG time! 

Check this out.  Click on this link, and it will take you directly to a US GAAP Taxonomy concept "Cash" within a library of taxonomies.  Now, this link is a bit of a mouthful, but you can use http://www.tinyurl.com to convert the link to this.

Hat's off to CoreFiling for this feature.  This goes to show that software vendors may be getting close to being over the "hump" where they have been investing in XBRL infrastructure which is needed to make use of XBRL, and we are moving into an era of business user features, showing the true power of XBRL.

I mean, really think about this.  Imagine being able to link from one vendor's software application into a different vendor's software application, just because of XBRL.  Imagine an investor looking at a financial statement using interactive data being able to link into the taxonomy library, or a different library, or perhaps they could choose between several different renderings of the taxonomy, based on what they wanted to achieve at the time; directly from the financial statement.  The possibilities are endless!

CoreFilings has put together somewhat of a financial reporting taxonomy library.  The library has a number of different taxonomies including IFRS, and US GAAP.  The library can be found here.

The tool is useful for taking a look at different taxonomies.

Note that the US GAAP Taxonomies can be found here.  This appears to be a subset of the full library.

This is a fragment Fragment of the article on MSN Money Central.

A revolution for small investors

Soon all companies will report financials in a programming language called XBRL that will allow you and me to slice and dice numbers like never before.

By Michael Brush
A few years from now, don't be surprised if some blogger in his boxer shorts brings down the next Enron.

That may seem far-fetched, but hold off on the laughter.

That's because individual investors in the U.S. will soon move another step closer to a brave new world of democratized financial information that will put powerful analytical tools on their desktops.

On May 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission will announce the next steps for making all companies report financials using a software programming language called XBRL.

XBRL will eventually put a far superior version of Wall Street's high-priced tools in the hands of regular investors for free and maybe even help them uncover the next accounting scandal.

XBRL will bring such a revolution to investment analysis that any Sherlock Holmes who X-rays financials for clues on a company's health needs to learn about it -- and push the SEC to make companies adopt it as soon as possible.

(More on MSN Money Central)