Digital Financial Reporting/Understanding Basic Mechanics of a Digital Financial Report

Terminology

The following is a summary of important terminology related to a digital financial report:

#	Term	Description	Commentary
1	Thing	A thing is something that exists in the real world, in the problem domain, in the area of concern. A thing is just a class that all classes and individuals of the problem domain must belong to. All classes are subclasses of thing. Every individual must be of some class. Every class is a thing. Therefore since all classes are subclasses of thing; then all individuals are likewise ultimately a thing. "Nothing" is the opposite of thing.	Defined by OWL 2 DL and Description Logic
2	Individual	An individual is some specific item that exists in reality. For example, a specific person such as Bill Gates III, a specific report such as Fiscal year 2014 financial statement, a specific economic entity such as Microsoft Corp. An individual exists only once.	Defined by OWL 2 DL and Description Logic
3	Class	A class is a set or category of individuals that have one or more distinguishing features in common which differentiates the class from other classes. For example person is the class consisting of all persons of which Bill Gates III is a member. Each problem domain can be captured in terms of a family of classes, together with a set of relations. The most important relation is the subclass relation (also called is-a) which organizes the classes in a taxonomic tree. Other key types of relations are whole-part and has-part.	Defined by OWL 2 DL and Description Logic
4	Property	A property is a trait, quality, feature, attribute of an individual, for example the property of being male of a person, of being filed of a report, and so on. A property belongs to something. For example, the color of a ball belongs to and is therefore is dependent on (is a property of) the ball.	Defined by OWL 2 DL and Description Logic
5	Fact	A fact is reported. A fact defines a single, observable, reportable piece of information contained within a financial report, or fact value, contextualized for unambiguous interpretation or analysis by one or more distinguishing characteristics (properties of the fact). A fact value is one property of a fact. Every fact has exactly one fact value.	Defined by XBRL 2.1 Technical Specification
6	Characteristic	A characteristic describes a fact (a characteristic is a property of a fact). A characteristic or distinguishing aspect provides information necessary to describe a fact or distinguish one fact from another fact. A fact may have one or many distinguishing characteristics.	Implied (but not defined) by XBRL Dimensions Specification; a dimension articulates a characteristic
7	Concept	A concept refers to a financial reporting concept or a non-financial concept which can be reported as a fact within a financial report. A concept is a type of characteristic.	Implied (but not defined) by XBRL Technical Specification; Defined by XBRL Dimensions as a primary item
8	Entity	A reporting entity is an economic entity or accounting entity which releases a financial report.	Defined by financial reporting conceptual framework
9	Report	A container for the packaging of a specific, discrete set of facts to be distributed together.	Defined by financial reporting conceptual framework
10	Report component	A report is made up of pieces. The pieces of a report are called a component. A component contains or groups a sets of facts. A component is a set of facts which go together (tend to be cohesive and share a certain common nature) for some specific purpose within a financial report.	Implied, implemented by XBRL Network and XBRL Dimensions Hypercube
11	Fact table	A fact table is an abstract idea which explains the relations between a report component, facts, characteristics, etc.	Abstract idea

DRAFT video which explains these pieces (to be recreated): Foundational Components

Fact table example

The following is an example of a fact table. This fact table is for one report component. This fact table has two facts which are shown in the rows. Each fact has four characteristics: Reporting entity, Legal entity, Period, and Concept. Each fact has a value.

Reporting entity	Legal entity	Period	Concept	Value
ABC Company	Consolidated entity	January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011	Revenues	2000000
ABC Company	Consolidated entity	January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011	Net income (loss)	1000000

The following is an example of a fact table. This fact table is one report component. This fact table has two facts which are shown in the rows. Each fact has four characteristics: Reporting entity, Legal entity, Period, and Concept. Each fact has a value. The fact value has two properties: Units and Decimals.

Reporting entity	Legal entity	Period	Concept	Value	Units	Decimals
ABC Company	Consolidated entity	January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011	Revenues	2000000	US Dollars	0
ABC Company	Consolidated entity	January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011	Net income (loss)	1000000	US Dollars	0