Digital Financial Reporting

In order to understand different implementation altrenatives I compared each of the alternatives that I could see using the constraints that I believe are important.  This is what I came up with:

There seems to be the following alternative data storage options for implementing an XBRL based system:

• File system: Store information as files in your file system.
• Relational database: Put the data into a relational database.
• Multidimensional database: Put the information into a multidimensional database.
• RDF triple store: Put the information into an RDF triple store.
• NoSQL database: Put the information into a NoSQL database.

There appear to be two different storage strategies which one might use:

• XBRL technical syntax format: Store information in the raw XBRL technical syntax format.
• Queriable semantic oriented format: Convert the XBRL technical syntax into a more queryable semantic oriented format so that you don't need to convert the information at query time, thus hindering performance.

These seem to be the important evaluation criteria:

• Easy for business user to use (intuitive): Is the system EASY or HARD for a business user to use?
• Query power and query sophistication: Is the query language POWERFUL or UNSOPHISTOCATED?
• Performance, query speed: Is query performance FAST or SLOW?
• Expressive power: Is the system EXPRESSIVE or INEXPRESSIVE?
• System flexibility, agility: Is the system FEXIBLE or INFLEXIBLE?
• System scalability: Is the system SCALABLE or NOT SCALABLE?
• Global standard: Is the system STANDARD or PROPRIETARY?
• Cost effective: Is the system INEXPENSIVE or EXPENSIVE?
• Maintainability: Is the system EASY TO MAINTAIN or HARD TO MAINTAIN?

So, I created radar charts for each of the options for implementation from above.  On the chart I show two sets of data: one for storing the XBRL technical syntax (in RED), the other for storing a more business semantics oriented format (in BLACK).  I assigned values for each of the 9 constraints.  The radar graphs below show the results that I get:

File system

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Relational database

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Multidimensional database

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RDF Triple Store

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NoSQL Database

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This is the raw data that I used to populate the radar charts:

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If you don't like the values I assigned for each alternative for each of the constraints, here is the Excel spreadsheet which I used, assign your own values.

You can download the radar graphs and data which are summarized in this PDF.

Reach your own conclusions.