Four Core Models Used to Describe a Financial Report

Wednesday, September 25, 2019 at 04:57PM
Charlie in Becoming an XBRL Master Craftsman

What I am noticing is that there are four individual models that are used to describe the logic of a financial report:

1. Model that describes a logical system: At the highest level you have the model of a logical system that is used to describe how logical descriptions are explained.
2. Model that describes a business report: At the next level you have the model that goes into the logical system model which describes the model of a business report. (this stuff)
3. Multidimensional model: I don't know if this should be considered separate, but the multidimensional model is used within the business report model to describe a business report.
4. Accounting equation: The accounting equation, "Assets = Liabilities + Equity" is the core model of a financial report; that core model is expanded upon by the conceptual framework of an individual financial reporting scheme.

This narrative provides a suscinct overview of all four models in one document.

To implement all this within XBRL, see this document Method for Implementation of a Standard Business Report Using XBRL, page 34, section Physical Implementation Model.  Note that this provides references to numerous other documents that are helpful in implementing all this.

Here is an actual implementation which is currently the best example implementation that I have, FRF for SMEs Ontology.  (This blog post provides additional information on the FRF for SMEs implementation.  This page has detailed information about four other implementations: US GAAP, IFRS, XASB, and IPSAS.)

Note that if you leave out the "Accounting equation" model, then all of this same stuff works for general business reports.

Here is a summary of example implementations of all five of these reporting schemes (US GAAP, IFRS, XASB, IPSAS, FRF for SMEs).

This document, Guide to Building an Expert System for Creating Financial Reports, is helpful in using all the above information for building software applications for creating or otherwise working with financial reports.

Article originally appeared on XBRL-based structured digital financial reporting (http://xbrl.squarespace.com/).