US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework Overview

Public Working Draft - dated 2004-08-15

# Editor

Name | Contact | Affiliation
Jeffrey Naumann | jnaumann@aicpa.org | AICPA

# Authors

Name | Contact | Affiliation
Charles Hoffman | charleshoffman@olywa.net | UBmatrix
Bradford Homer | bhomer@aicpa.org | AICPA

# Abstract

The purpose of this document is to explain the 2004-08-15 version of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework, which is designed to be used to express financial statements of public companies using XBRL.

# Table of Contents

Editor 1

Authors 1

Abstract 1

Table of Contents 1

1. Introduction. 2

2. Overview of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework 2

2.1. Framework Overview. 2

2.2. Summary of types of Components or Layers 3

2.3. Components 5

3. Design Decisions & Updates from Previous versions 6

3.1. Elements 7

3.2. Labels 7

3.3. References 8

3.4. Presentation. 8

3.5. Calculation. 8

3.6. Definitions 8

4. Sample Instance. 9

5. Taxonomy Feedback 9

# 1. Introduction

This Document describes the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) “US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework” (USFRTF), which has been prepared by the XBRL-US Domain Working Group, with feedback from other members of XBRL International as well. The US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework has been updated to be compliant with the XBRL 2.1, Specification and the candidate recommendation Financial Reporting Taxonomy Architecture 1.0 (FRTA).

The purpose of this document is as follows:

- Explain the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework – Provide an overview of the components and structure of the framework as well as plans for future components.

- Describe significant design decisions and updates from previous versions – This release represents an update to previous versions of the framework, the most recent being the 2003-07-07 version (http://www.xbrl.org/Taxonomy/us/usfrtf/2003-07-07/TaxonomyFrameworkOverview.htm). This section will describe the significant design considerations in modelling the framework for XBRL 2.1 and FRTA 1.0 compliance and also highlight other significant updates from previous versions. This document does not intend to describe all of the detailed technical rationale behind changes or every detailed change, but seeks to provide an overview of the significant issues.

This document assumes an understanding of US GAAP financial reporting, XBRL and FRTA.

# 2. Overview of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework

## 2.1. Framework Overview

The US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework is a collection of XBRL taxonomies that will be used to express the financial statement-based reports of both public and private companies across all industry sectors. Different components of the framework will be used for different reporting purposes, and new components will be added over time to cover more diverse reporting needs.

Below is a graphical representation of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework (each component will be explained in more detail later in this document):

### 2.1.1. Modularity goals of this framework

In developing the framework, the following goals were used to determine how to modularize the taxonomies:

· Minimize duplicate elements for a single concept between taxonomy components

· Ease maintenance of the taxonomies

· Ease company extension and instance creation

## 2.2. Summary of types of Components or Layers

The following is a summary of the types of components or “layers” contained in the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework:

· Stand alone add-ons

· Common terms

· Industry terms

### 2.2.1. Stand Alone Add-ons

Stand Alone Add-ons are self-contained DTSs that may be used by creators of XBRL Reports. These components include a schema file and all linkbases (presentation, label, calculation, reference and definition) as appropriate. They are not referenced or imported by the GAAP Industry extension DTSs because they:

- Are not universally needed by users of the Industry Extension Taxonomies

- May be updated, superseded or replaced by other external components independent of changes to the Industry Extension Taxonomies

Users who wish to take advantage of the Stand Alone Add-Ons can either import the add-on components into their company extension taxonomy or use the add-on components directly in their instance document.

NOTE: In previous versions of the taxonomy framework, these components were imported directly into the Industry Extension Taxonomies.

### 2.2.2. Common Terms Layer

The Common Terms Layer components are the foundational building blocks for the Industry Extension Taxonomies. These taxonomies include elements for concepts that are common to multiple industry extensions which are stored in a common component to ease maintenance and maximize comparability.

These components will include a schema file, label linkbases and reference linkbases, in some cases they may also include presentation and calculation linkbases where the relationships are known to be common for all industries that will extend the particular common term component.

NOTE: In previous versions of the taxonomy framework, the elements contained in the current version of the Primary Terms component were split into two components, Primary Terms and Notes and Management’s Discussion and Analysis. Also, in previous versions of the taxonomy, some concepts had elements in both of these separate components (e.g. Inventory for the balance sheet and Inventory for the Notes). As we removed the duplicate elements (in accordance with FRTA 1.0 Rule 2.1.1) and modelled the taxonomy using multiple links rather than multiple elements, it was deemed appropriate to capture these concepts in a single layer. The two significant reasons for this change were:

- Making arbitrary decisions about which taxonomy to place a concept in, based on how historical paper-based financial statements were constructed, would be confusing to both creators and consumers of XBRL

- As multiple relationships for single elements were being constructed (to depict the different ways that a concept may be presented or disaggregated) it was more efficient to have all of the concepts in a single taxonomy

### 2.2.3. Industry Taxonomy Layer

Users creating company extensions or instance documents will normally select a single primary taxonomy from the Industry Taxonomy Layer. The Industry Taxonomies specialize and extend the concepts defined in the common terms layer and build relationships between these concepts using the presentation and calculation linkbases.

## 2.3. Components

The following is a summary of components in the USFRTF:

Namespace Prefix | Name | Layer | Description
int-gcd | Global Common Document | Stand Alone Add-on | Contains information that is specific to the document being created or the entity that issues the document. For example, general information about the title of the document, its creator, revisions to the document, the name of the entity and the industry in which the entity operates.
usfr-ar | Accountants Report | Stand Alone Add-on | Contains information that describes the independent accountants’ report, if one is issued, such as the name and signature of the independent auditor/accountant.
usfr-fst | Financial Services Terms | Common Terms Layer | This financial reporting taxonomy is intended to provide detail level accounting terms that are typically included in financial statements. This taxonomy includes such terms that are common solely to the financial services sector.
usfr-mda | Management Discussion and Analysis | Stand Alone Add-on | Includes information for the section of then annual report where the company’s management provides analysis on results of operations, financial position and other issues.
usfr-mr | Management Report | Stand Alone Add-on | Information contained within the Management Report which typically accompanies audited financial statements.
usfr-pt | Primary Terms | Common Terms Layer | This financial reporting taxonomy is intended to provide detail level accounting terms that are typically included in financial statements. This taxonomy includes such terms that are common to multiple major industries.
usfr-sec-cert | SEC Officers Certification | Stand Alone Add-on | Information contained in the Officers Certification report as mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 0f 2002
us-gaap-ci | Commercial and Industrial Companies | Industry Taxonomy Layer | This taxonomy is intended to provide the accounting concepts and relationships to allow Commercial and Industrial entities to express their financial statements in XBRL. This taxonomy builds on top of the Common Terms layer and may serve as the basis for further details industry extensions.
us-gaap-basi | Banking and Savings Institutions | Industry Taxonomy Layer | This taxonomy is intended to provide the accounting concepts and relationships to allow banking related entities to express their financial statements in XBRL. This taxonomy builds on top of the Common Terms layer.
us-gaap-ins | Insurance industry | Industry Taxonomy Layer | This taxonomy is intended to provide the accounting concepts and relationships to allow insurance related entities to express their financial statements in XBRL. This taxonomy builds on top of the Common Terms layer.

# 3. Design Decisions & Updates from Previous versions

This section will describe, at a high level, the significant design considerations in modelling the framework for XBRL 2.1 Specification and FRTA 1.0 compliance and also highlight other significant updates from previous versions. As the taxonomies are aimed to be fully XBRL 2.1 Specification and FRTA 1.0 compliant, the rationale and details behind many of the design decisions can be found in those documents.

## 3.1. Elements

The basic strategy for elements is to provide one element for one financial reporting concept. If there is reasonable question as to whether two concepts are always identical, the taxonomy errs on the side of creating two elements, rather than forcing what may be two concepts into one concept.

Each element within a taxonomy has a unique name and ID expressing a unique financial reporting concept. Element names have been created in conformance with the LC3 convention as prescribed in FRTA 1.0. Element names remain largely unchanged from previous versions of the taxonomy framework; a map of name changes for those that have been modified will be circulated with the taxonomies.

This version of the taxonomy framework contains a robust level of elements for the disclosures typically found in the financial statements for the selected industries. Building on to the methods used to create, validate and test the previous iterations of the taxonomy; additional efforts have gone into analyzing a wider range of financial statements to ensure the taxonomies have sufficient elements to meet market needs.

However, it is not practical or realistic to include every possible accounting concept or disclosure in these common taxonomies due to company specific disclosures and aggregations. It is expected that many if not all companies will require an extension taxonomy to cover those terms not in the taxonomy.

Elements for the notes to the financial statements are provided on a summary level throughout, and in varying levels of detail for certain specific notes. Over time, this framework of disclosures for the notes to the financial statements will be built out to provide all of the detailed elements required. It is possible to tag a complete set of notes to the financial statements using the taxonomy as its structured today; future efforts will provide the capability for this tagging to occur at a more detailed level.

## 3.2. Labels

A unique, standard label (standard label role) is provided for every element within each taxonomy. A full set of labels is also provided for the terse label role, these labels are NOT unique. Additional label roles are utilized on an as needed-basis, for example period end labels.

All labels are in English as used in the United States. Additional labels for different labels may be provided at a later time. For example, the US Domain Working Group is currently working with the Japan Domain Working Group to explore how to provide a set of Japanese labels for the taxonomy.

As with previous versions of the taxonomy, documentation or ‘human readable’ definitions are provided for the elements in the taxonomy. These brief descriptions are intended to provide users with an easy, non-authoritative mechanism to understand the accounting or reporting concept that an element represents.

In previous versions of the taxonomies, these definitions were included the XML Schema “documentation” element of the taxonomy schema. For this taxonomy release the definitions have been moved to the documentation label role of the label linkbase in accodance with FRTA 1.0 rule 2.1.13.

The following table shows the migration of the label roles from the previous release of the taxonomies to the current release:

Taxonomy Version | Role | Role | Role
2003-07-07 | Standard | Long | Not in label linkbase – in schema documentation
2004-08-15 | Terse | Standard | Documentation

## 3.3. References

References are currently provided for many elements but have not yet been completed for all elements in the taxonomy. Elements in the current taxonomy release which do have references defined may not have a complete set of references across all the different possible sources of references.

The US Domain Working Group currently has a subcommittee working on updating the references to ensure consistency amongst reference sources and to complete the reference linkbase to cover all elements in the taxonomy.

## 3.4. Presentation

The presentation link base provides an organizational hierarchy of elements in the taxonomy to make it easy for users and reviewers of the taxonomy to find specific content within the taxonomy; in general terms this hierarchy follows the organization of a set of financial statements.

Abstract elements are used throughout the presentation linkbase as described in rule 3.2.7 of FRTA 1.0 to provide additional organization. Separate extended link roles are also used to define the major separate presentation networks found within the taxonomies.

## 3.5. Calculation

Calculation linkbases are provided to document all calculations that are true within a context. Calculations are NOT provided across contexts as XBRL does not support these types of calculations at this time. When the formula linkbase is completed additional calculations will be provided, including calculations across contexts such as those used to express reconciliations between a beginning balance to an account, changes to that account, and the ending balance to an account (movement analysis).

Separate extended link roles are used where there are multiple calculation networks for elements within the taxonomies.

## 3.6. Definitions

No definition linkbases have been provided as part of this taxonomy release; they may be included as enhancements to future releases of the taxonomy, but there are no immediate plans to create definition linkbases for the taxonomies.

# 4. Sample Instance

Sample instance documents have been provided for each industry taxonomy, which may be useful in helping you understand how the taxonomy works and is intended to be used. If you are confused by something in the taxonomy, look for that information in the sample instance documents to see if the context helps explain the taxonomy content.

# 5. Taxonomy Feedback

Comments and feedback on either accounting concepts within the taxonomy or technical aspects of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework are welcome, particularly ideas to improve this taxonomy. If you have a comment or feedback or wish to report an error, email comments to Brad Homer (bhomer@aicpa.org).

To assist in the feedback process, a review template has been provided for each taxonomy, these can be found on each individual taxonomy summary page. Other feedback outside of this template will be accepted, however it should be as specific as possible in identifying the taxonomy, elements, links or other details that are being commented on. Feedback received will be summarized and be made available to the XBRL-US Domain Working Group and also publicly.

Detailed responses will not be provided for every comment submitted, however a summary of which feedback has been incorporated will be provided.