1. Overview
1.1. Purpose
The XBRL-US Domain Working Group is leading the development of this XBRL US Financial Reporting Primary Terms - Relationships(USFR-PTR) Taxonomy for the purpose of expressing common financial reporting concepts according to US GAAP/FASB and other related/relevant accounting standards.
This Primary Terms - Relationships (USFR-PTR) Taxonomy is designed to facilitate the creation of XBRL industry taxonomies focused on financial reporting. The purpose of the USFR-PTR Taxonomy is to provide a framework for the consistent creation of XBRL documents for financial reporting purposes by private sector and public sector entities. The purpose of this and other taxonomies produced using XBRL is to supply a framework that will facilitate data exchange among software applications used by companies and individuals as well as other financial information stakeholders, such as lenders, investors, auditors, attorneys, and regulators.
The authority for this USFR-PTR Taxonomy is based upon US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The development of the taxonomy is based upon input from accounting firms, technology companies and other domain experts in the field of financial reporting. In addition, the specific content of the taxonomy is based upon standards identified by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and other related standards organizations.
The particular disclosures in this USFR-PTR Taxonomy model are:
1. Required by numerous financial services industries
2. Typically represented in AICPA model financial statements, checklists and guidance materials as provided from each of the major international accounting firms.
3. Found in common reporting practice, or
4. Flow logically from items 1-3, for example, sub-totals and totals.
1.2. Taxonomy Status
The USFR-PTR Taxonomy is an Approved taxonomy. Its content and
structure have been reviewed by both accounting and technical teams that
comprise XBRL-US and XBRL International. The USFR-PTR Taxonomy complies with
the Financial Reporting Taxonomy Architecture 1.0 (FRTA) and XBRL Specification
Version 2.1.
The XBRL-US Domain Working Group intends to have this taxonomy reach the
status of a approved taxonomy under the XBRL Taxonomy Approval Process (TAP)
2004. XBRL Taxonomies can exist in two states insofar as XBRL International TAP
is concerned:
- Acknowledged – A royalty-free taxonomy that
the creators have asked XBRL International to list at XBRL.org; XBRL
International confirms only that the taxonomy is compliant with the XBRL
specification and is available free of royalties. This classification
indicates to the business user the degree of endorsement by XBRL
International.
- Approved – A taxonomy which is technically
compliant with XBRL, is available on royalty free terms, follows best
practices prescribed by XBRL International (e.g. FRTA) and either has been
developed by XBRL International itself or that has followed a public
review process similar to XBRL International's own.
1.3.
Scope of Taxonomy
This USFR-PTR Taxonomy is released in conjunction with the Primary Terms -Elements (USFR-FSTE), Accountants Report (USFR-AR), Management’s Discussion & Analysis (USFR-MDA), Primary Terms - Elements (USFR-PTE), Primary Terms - Relationships (USFR-PTR), Management Report (USFR-MR), and SEC Officers Certification (USFR-SEC-CERT). These taxonomies are all part of the US Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework, an XBRL taxonomy framework that enables reusability of components and provides the foundation for creating new industry taxonomies (such as Insurance, Banks and Savings Institutions, etc.) going forward.
The
USFR-PTR Taxonomy is designed solely as a building block portion of the US
Financial Reporting Taxonomy Framework. It is not expected that the taxonomy
contains sufficient information to be used on its own, rather additional
taxonomies are required to fully express how different industries report the
concepts included in the USFR-PTR taxonomy.
These additional taxonomies are likely to identify the particular needs
of:
- Specific industries,
for example, Commercial & Industrial, Banking & Savings or
Insurance.
- National jurisdictions
for those companies that require a non-US GAAP standard as the core
financial standards setting foundation and may include supplementary
reporting requirements or prevent use of available options by local
accounting standards setters as well as stock exchanges etc.
- National industry or
common practice, for example, tax or credit reporting.
- An
individual company
These extension taxonomies will either extend the USFR-PTR Taxonomy to meet the particular reporting
requirements of that industry, country or company and/or restrict by limiting the use of particular USFR-PTR Taxonomy
elements.
The inter-relationships of the
various taxonomies are show in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Interrelationship of Taxonomies and Instance Document
2.
Overview of Taxonomy
2.1.
Taxonomy Structure
2.2.
Label Languages
Currently, labels for taxonomy elements are provided in English. In the future, taxonomy labels could be expressed in additional languages as required.
2.3.
References
This Taxonomy provides references to FASB and other relevant standards. Figure 3 shows an example of the reference elements are used in this taxonomy, using “FASB 142, sub paragraph 23” to illustrate how a reference is matched to these elements:
Figure 3: Reference Naming Structure
|
Name: |
FASB |
|
Number: |
142 |
|
Paragraph: |
|
|
Subparagraph: |
23 |
|
Clause: |
|
Authoritative reference
information used throughout the taxonomy relies on a series of acronyms. The following list provides an overview of
the acronyms used commonly throughout the authoritative references:
- Accounting Research Bulletin (ARB)
- AICPA Opinion and Interpretation
- Industry Audit and Accounting Guide (AAG)
- Statement of Position (SOP)
- Practice Bulletin (PB)
- AICPA Accounting Interpretation (AIN)
- AICPA Accounting Principles Board Statement
- AICPA Issues Papers
- AICPA Technical Practice Aids (TPA)
FASB
- Accounting Principles Board Opinion (APB)
- Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (FAS)
- FASB Interpretation (FIN)
- FASB Technical Bulletin (FTB)
- Emerging Issues Taskforce (EITF)
- Implementation Guide (Q&A)
- FASB Staff Position (FSP)
- Current Text (CT)
- Accounting Principles Board Statements (APS)
- FASB Financial Accounting Concepts (CON)
SEC
- Regulation S-X (SX)
- Article 9 (ART 9)
- Article 4 (ART 4)
- Regulation S-K (SK)
- Regulation S-B (SB)
- Regulation S-T (ST)
- Staff Accounting Bulletins (SAB)
- Regulation T (Reg T)
- Staff Position (SP)
- Financial Reporting Release (FRR)
- Staff Legal Bulletin (SLB)
- SEC Industry Guide
OTS
- Federal Regulation (FR)
3. Reviewing This Taxonomy
There are a number of approaches to reviewing the taxonomy both from an accounting and technical XBRL perspective. For more information on reviewing taxonomies, reviewers should read the Reviewer’s Guide to Financial Reporting Taxonomies 1.0 as published by XBRL-US.
4. Sample Instance Documents
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. Updates and Changes
5.1.
Updates to this Taxonomy
This taxonomy will be updated with revisions for errors and new features within the following guidelines:
· Since financial statements created using a taxonomy must be available indefinitely, the taxonomy must be available indefinitely. All updates will take the form of new versions of the taxonomy with a different date. For example, the taxonomy http://www.xbrl.org/us/fr/common/ptr/2005-02-28/usfr-ptr-2005-02-28.xsd will never change. New versions will be issued under a different name, such as http://www.xbrl.org/us/fr/common/ptr/2004-12-31/usfr-ptr-2007-12-31.xsd. This will ensure that any taxonomy created will be available indefinitely.
- It is anticipated that this taxonomy will be updated as required to incorporate changes in generally accepted accounting principles and business reporting norms.
5.2.
Comments and 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).
Detailed responses will not be provided for
every comment submitted, however a summary of which feedback has been
incorporated will be provided.