0

While going through an XBRL instance file, I saw an element. But that element is not present in the corresponding 'extended link' in the definition link base in the taxonomy(though it is present in the xsd). There is another similarly-named element in the def linkbase in that extended link, but it's not used in the xbrl. I usually compare the financial report and the definition linkbase (section by section) to identify the XBRL elements to be used. Am I following the right approach? How can I identify which XBRL elements to use for a particular section of a financial report?

schan
  • 51
  • 6

1 Answers1

0

There's nothing in the the spec that says what elements can and can't be used. The closest you'd get is a requires-element relationship that describes 'if x is present than y must also be present' semantics.

If an element exists in the discovered schemas, then it's valid in the instance.

Charles Mager
  • 25,735
  • 2
  • 35
  • 45
  • Thank you for your response. Could you please also tell me how to find the corresponding xsd element to be used for a particular item to be reported? For example, say I have a section 'Sales volume' in my financial report in which i record, say, the number of items sold. How should i compare the report and the taxonomy to find which element to use in the xbrl for'number of items sold'? – schan Jan 01 '15 at 05:04
  • Is this a publicly available XBRL taxonomy? It may be easier if you were to give a specific example with reference to that taxonomy. I'm not entirely sure how you're determining what a section is in reference to the taxonomy. – Charles Mager Jan 01 '15 at 10:48
  • I found most financial statements have lots of tables; and def link bases have lots of extended links that exactly match the fact-dimension structure of these tables. So in reference to the taxonomy, a section is an extended link and in a financial statement it is a table. I just can't figure out how to create a mapping based on the xsd... It has too many elements and is confusing.. Is it ok to compare the extended link and table to create a mapping? Any help would be great.... – schan Jan 03 '15 at 16:57
  • I'd be guessing without knowing the taxonomy or how it was designed. I'd expect the presentation of tables to be defined in the *presentation linkbase* or *table linkbase*. What you seem to be describing are the dimensional relationships - the grouping may be coincidental, which might explain your original problem of elements being present that aren't in the `definitionLink`. – Charles Mager Jan 03 '15 at 17:05
  • Thank you for your response. I'm afraid it's not a publicly available taxonomy, but I'll try to get a similar example to cite. However the grouping doesn't seem to be coincidental, because I saw a lot of examples as described earlier; even the number of ext links in the def link base is the same as the number of tables in the report (apart from 2extra ext links that are present in all def link bases, I didn't get why they were there). So when a mismatch occurred in exactly one element in one of these links, it created a confusion. – schan Jan 04 '15 at 04:35
  • Finally solved my problem... It seems it was an error and was rectified in a new version of the taxonomy... – schan Feb 10 '15 at 04:07