Digital Financial Reporting

In a prior blog post I mentioned the Luca application for creating XBRL-based financial reports that a software engineer and I created.

Another software engineer, Yury Volkovich, undertook to duplicate and enhance the functionality of the original desktop version of Luca. 

• YAXBRL browser-based version of Luca!

Auditchain also built a cloud-based version of what Luca provided, you can use that application here:

• Auditchain browser-based version of Luca (Part of Auditchain Suite, these videos help you understand how to use the application)

These Excel files it a ZIP archive can be used to create reports.

The following tutorials can help you understand how to use this cloud-based version of Luca. The tutorias were created using the YAXBRL version; but the Auditchain version works the same. Documentation is the tutorial documentation and the Excel Import Files is the ZIP archive of the files you will be using to import information into the report model and report: (where there is no link yet, the information is forth coming.

1. Start Here: This is a 11 minute video walk through of using the Luca application (highly recommended)
2. Using import: This is a 7 minute video walk through of using the Luca IMPORT functionality (highly recommended; note that you can grap the Excel import files below)
3. Accounting equation Tutorial: Documentation
4. Hello World! Tutorial: Documentation | Excel Import Files
5. Hello World! with Dimensions: Documentation | Excel Import Files
6. Hello World! with Dimensions, no dimension-default: Documentation | Excel Import Files
7. Hello World! PPE components represented using dimensions: Documentation | Excel Import Files
8. SFAC 6 Tutorial: Documentation | Excel Import Files
9. Common Elements of Finacial Statement Tutorial: Documentation | Excel Import Files
10. MINI Financial Reporting Scheme Tutorial: Documentation | Excel Import Files
11. PROOF Tutorial: Documentation | Excel Import Files (does not currently import certain types of rules and dimensions of facts...coming soon)
12. METHOD Tutorial: Documentation | XBRL-based Report (Coming Soon)
13. FAC example: Documentation | Excel Import Files
14. NFT example: Documentation | Excel Import Files
15. Microsoft test: Documentation | Excel Import File (This is a work in progress, not done yet)

After the above exercises are done, it would be worth while to do these exercises also. These additional examples add import and verification of the reports.  Then, these examples should be looked at to help consolidate your understanding.

To take your skills to the next level:

• Essentials of XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting: Documentation | Files and Other Information
• Mastering XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting: Documentation | Files and Other Information

This version of Luca is an excellent tool to learn about XBRL-based financial reporting.  Stay tuned and watch for updates on this web page. The ultimate objective is to create an Expert System for Creating Financial Reports.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has published an EDGAR API that is worth having a look at. With the API, you can do things like the following:

• Get a list of submissions to the SEC for a specific CIK number. Here are Microsoft's submissions.
• Get a list of fact values for a specific concept for a specific CIK. Here is the concept Assets for Microsoft reports submitted.
• Get a list of all facts reported by a specific CIK.  Here are all facts reported by Microsoft.
• Here is another list of facts.  Don't exactly understand what they are doing here frankly.

Well...this is a start.

I provided a reading list for software engineers interested in XBRL-based financial reporting.

Here is a similar list for business professionals: 

• Essence of Accounting: Brings into conciousness certain things about accounting.  A logical description of the record to report process: accounting, reporting, auditing, and analysis.
• Computational Professional Services: Helps you understand the opportunities for automation that exist.
• Method Overview: Using this method, enterprises can reliably and effectively stream a high-quality machine-readable XBRL-based global standard knowledge graph of a complete, consistent, and provably correct general purpose financial statement. Further, an entire record-to-report process can be automated effectively. This method provides both the flexibility and the control necessary.
• Logical Theory Describing Financial Report: A general purpose financial report explained logically using axioms, theorems, and a world view.
• Mastering XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting: Everything you would ever want to know about XBRL-based digital financial reporting.
• Video demonstration of Pesseract: This video shows the basic functionality of Pesseract which is a rules-based expert system for creating financial reports.

Things seem to be speeding up.  Stumbled across something interesting today: Xenett.

Xenett says that they are an ecosystem for accountants.  To understand what they might be up to, watch this YouTube video, What is Xenett?

They seem to have a cloud based practice management system.They seem to have some sort of enhanced import functionality related to QuickBooks and Xero.  They have some sort of automated review functionality that is supposed to save 60% of financial review time. Personally, I would have a different strategy in terms of review.  Avoid making the mistake in the first place (i.e. expert system for creating financial report) and then there is no reason to "review" because there will be no mistakes where the expert system is watching over the financial report being created.

GLEIF publishes Introducing the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). LEIs are another piece in the digital financail reporting puzzle.