Digital Financial Reporting

The software developer and I that are creating Pesseract have made an updated version and license available.  You can get that new version and/or license here on the "Get Started/Download" tab.

The new version fixes bugs, adds some new functionality, and has a license that will work until December 31, 2018.  (If you only want the new license to use with your current verion of Pesseract, please contact me.)

We know of about 25 people that have been using Pesseract.

As far as we know, Pesseract is the first GUI level software application intended to be used by accounting professionals that leverages artificial intelligence to create financial reports.  Pesseract works with US GAAP, IFRS, or other reporting schemes or for general business reporting.  Pesseract can be used for accounting process automation and/or robotic finance.

Stay tuned.  More updated versions of Pesseract will be made available between now and the end of the year.

Here are some interesting examples and samples you can play with:

1. General Profile, Dynamic Rules (dynamically add model structure, disclosure mechanics, and reporting checklist rules by linking the rules to the XBRL instance)
2. Lorem Ipsum General Profile, Five Different Sets of Labels (labels are connected to schema; note that the labels are gibberish)
3. Lorem Ipsum General Profile, APPEND LINKBASE (only EN labels are connected, other four sets of labels can be APPENDED to XBRL instance via "append linkbase"; again, note that the labels are gibberish)
   1. ES
   2. HU
   3. KO
   4. JA
4. Here are 250 XBRL-based reports that use IFRS that have been submitted to the SEC which you can fiddle with. (See column with title 'XBRL instance')
5. Load this XBRL instance that makes use of the IFRS taxonomy.  Then, APPEND this references linkbase which adds examples to the text blocks.  Go to the report element information for any text block to see the link to the examples.)
6. Load this XBRL instance. Now, append each of these XBRL instances:
   1. 2011
   2. 2012
   3. 2013
   4. 2014
   5. 2015
   6. 2016

You can get information about the field test of the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) here.  This is a lot of very nice stuff to fiddle with.

More information soon!

This Taxonomy Package specification explains the format of the files the ESMA has provided.  Be aware that not all the ZIP files are in the correct format.

H&R Block is partnering with IBM Watson for personal tax return preparation. Imagine a similar tool for the creation of corporate and partnership tax returns.  This is an example of the sorts of things to come in financial reporting, accounting, bookkeeping, etc.

I put together the document Computer Empathy to help people understand how computers work and therefore how to accurately understand the true capabilities of computers.

This video walks you through some of the capabilities of IBM Watson and how Watson works.  IBM is not the only one building this sort of software.  Google Deep Mind has similar capabilities.  It is highly likely that Apple, Microsoft, and many others will create similar capabilities.

But there are risks related to artificial intelligence.  Good leadership is called for.  Intellectual laziness needs to be avoided.  Snake oil salesmen will take advantage of ignorant buyers.

I am trying to figure out a better organization of this information, this is the next iteration.

Here are 964 US GAAP disclosures and 389 IFRS disclosures from public company 10-K and 20-F filings to the SEC.  Where I have comparisons generated, you can see the number of examples for each disclosure colored in CYAN:

• US GAAP
• IFRS

Here are the same disclosures, but the lists ONLY contain the disclosures for which I have created comparisons:

• US GAAP (Reference linkbase)
• IFRS (Reference linkbase) (Download all exemplars)

Here is the list of companies from which these disclosure examples were taken:

• 5,734 Public companies filing 10-Ks (Excel file in ZIP archive)
• 251 Public companies filing 20-Fs (Excel file in ZIP archive)

For more information see here: US GAAP | IFRS

Another seemingly useful thing to do is to compare specific US GAAP and IFRS disclosures.  For example,

• Property, Plant and Equipment full disclosure (Level 1 Note Text Block)
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS
• Property, Plant and Equipment (Level 3 Disclosure Text Block)
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS
• Property, Plant and Equipment Policy (Level 2 Policy Text Block)
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS
• Inventory full disclosure
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS
• Basis of reporting (a.k.a. basis of accounting or presentation of financial report)
  • US GAAP | US GAAP (Note)
  • IFRS
• Income taxes full disclosure
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS
• Nature of operations
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS | IFRS
• Revenue recognition
  • US GAAP
  • IFRS

Here are other viewers for checking out disclosures.  All of these are for US GAAP currently. 

• This includes Level 4 Disclosure Detail also. 
• This compares Level 3 Disclosure Text Blocks and Level 4 Disclosure Detail.
• This organizes disclosures by ASC Topic.
• These are best practice examples of disclosures.

Got any ideas to improve this information?  Got a better way to view disclosures? Send me your ideas and I will try and incorporate them.

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• Here are tools for analyzing the fundamental accounting concept relations. This covers 4,060 public companies which is about 68%. All these companies pass all of the fundamental accounting concept relations tests.
• Here is a prototype of something I am working on, I will explain later.
  • Balance sheet
  • Income statement
  • Statement of comprehensive income
  • Cash flow statement
  • Document and entity information

Here is a handful of IFRS-based reports that have been submitted to the SEC in the form of Form 20-F.  A 20-F is simiar to the Form 10-K in that it contains the annual financial statement:

• Orange: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• Sanofi: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• WNS Holdings LTD: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• LINGO Media Corp: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• Neovasc Inc: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• B Communications LTD: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• MFC BANCORP LTD: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page
• REPLICEL LIFE SCIENCES INC: XBRL Cloud Viewer | XBRL instance | SEC Filing Page

These filings are a great way to learn about IFRS-based financial reports.

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• This ZIP archive contains an Excel spreadsheet that has 251 SEC Form 20-F and 20-F/A filings that are created using the IFRS XBRL Taxonomy.
• This HTML page as the same information that is in the ZIP file (off by 1 filing, I will figure that out)
• This HTML page has a list of filings that have ZERO fundamental accounting concept relations mistakes.
• This is an extraction and validation tool (work in progress) for IFRS created using Excel.
• Comparison of text blocks (work in progress) for IFRS.
• Full list of text blocks.