Patent Application
20240126980
The present disclosure relates to reporting of business data in documents using the XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), and more particularly to systems and methods for reviewing XBRL facts.
XBRL is a standardized computer language by which businesses may efficiently and accurately communicate business data with each other and with regulating agencies. Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) 2.1 is available at http://www.xbrl. org/S p ecifi cati on/XBRL-2. 1/REC-2003-12-31/XBRL-2. 1-REC-2003-12-31+corrected-errata-2013-02-20.html. XBRL is a markup language not too dissimilar from XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). HTML was designed to display general-purpose data in a standardized way, XML was designed to transport and store general-purpose data in a standardized way, and XBRL was designed to transport and store business data in a standardized way.
Taxonomies are the report and subject specific dictionaries used by the XBRL community. Taxonomies include specific tags, referred to as XBRL tags, which are used for individual items of data (e.g., “Revenues”, “Operating expenses”), their attributes and their interrelationships. Different taxonomies are often required for different business reporting purposes.
XBRL is bringing about a dramatic change in the way people think about exchanging business information. Financial disclosures are a prime example of an industry built around a paper-based process that is being pushed into the technological age. This transition involves a paradigm shift from the pixel perfect world of building unstructured reports to a digital world where structured data is dominant.
In an embodiment, a method for XBRL review comprises receiving an XBRL document; receiving a request to create an XBRL review for the XBRL document; receiving a selection of an XBRL fact included in the XBRL document; applying a first review status, of a plurality of review statuses, to the selected XBRL fact; monitoring the selected XBRL fact to detect a change to the XBRL fact; and in response to detecting a change to the XBRL fact, updating the first review status of the XBRL fact to a second review status of the plurality of review statuses.
In another embodiment, a method for XBRL review comprises receiving an XBRL document; receiving a request to view an XBRL review that has been created for the XBRL document; and displaying, for each of a plurality of review statuses, a number of XBRL facts in the XBRL document having that review status applied.
In another embodiment, a computing device comprises a processor configured to carry out a method comprising receiving an XBRL document; receiving a request to create an XBRL review for the XBRL document; receiving a selection of an XBRL fact included in the XBRL document; applying a first review status, of a plurality of review statuses, to the selected XBRL fact; monitoring the selected XBRL fact to detect a change to the XBRL fact; and in response to detecting a change to the XBRL fact, updating the first review status of the XBRL fact to a second review status of the plurality of review statuses.
While the appended claims set forth the features of the present techniques with particularity, these techniques, together with their objects and advantages, may be best understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
Unless otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing feature sizes, amounts, and physical properties used in the specification and claims are to be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about.” Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the foregoing specification and attached claims are approximations that can vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained by those skilled in the art utilizing the teachings disclosed herein. The use of numerical ranges by endpoints includes all numbers within that range (e.g., 1 to 5 includes 1, 1.5, 2, 2.75, 3, 3.80, 4, and 5) and any range within that range.
Although illustrative methods may be represented by one or more drawings (e.g., flow diagrams, communication flows, etc.), the drawings should not be interpreted as implying any requirement of, or particular order among or between, various steps disclosed herein. However, certain some embodiments may require certain steps and/or certain orders between certain steps, as may be explicitly described herein and/or as may be understood from the nature of the steps themselves (e.g., the performance of some steps may depend on the outcome of a previous step). Additionally, a “set,” “subset,” or “group” of items (e.g., inputs, algorithms, data values, etc.) may include one or more items, and, similarly, a subset or subgroup of items may include one or more items. A “plurality” means more than one.
As used herein, the term “based on” is not meant to be restrictive, but rather indicates that a determination, identification, prediction, calculation, and/or the like, is performed by using, at least, the term following “based on” as an input. For example, predicting an outcome based on a particular piece of information may additionally, or alternatively, base the same determination on another piece of information.
The XBRL review system of the present disclosure is designed for teams of users to have a central place that they can establish a process of bringing their XBRL facts through a two-tiered verification and approval process.
The XBRL review system of the present disclosure is centered on XBRL facts. An XBRL fact (sometimes referred to herein simply as a “fact”) is an individual piece of information in an XBRL document. An XBRL fact is represented by reporting a value against a concept (e.g., assets, profit, etc.), and associating the value with a number of dimension values (e.g., units, period, entity, or other dimensions) that together uniquely define a data point.
In an embodiment, the XBRL review system provides the user with the ability to set a review status for a selected XBRL fact. For example, by selecting a particular fact in the XBRL document, the user is able to review all of the associated tagging for the selected fact. Once the user has reviewed all of the tagging for the selected fact, the user may set or update a review status for the fact. This review status is then made visible to other users (e.g., collaborators) who are also viewing the XBRL document. In an embodiment, the user may designate a review status of “flagged”, “verified”, or “approved”. In one embodiment, there may also be additional and/or alternative review statuses that may be applied to facts. For example, when an XBRL review is first created for an XBRL document, all facts that are present in the XBRL document may be designated with a default review status of “pending”.
In another example, once a fact has been designated as “verified” or “approved”, the system monitors that fact for changes and, whenever a change to the fact occurs, the system will automatically update the review status of that fact to “needs review”. This will signal to the reviewers that something has changed that needs to be looked at. The XBRL Review panel will navigate the user directly to the fact that needs review, and a Fact Details panel (described in greater detail herein) will give the user the ability to view the details of what has changed with respect to the fact, including, for example, when the change occurred, by whom the change was made, and the like. For example, for a fact that was previously verified or approved, and then is subsequently changed, the system may identify (e.g., highlight or otherwise designate) the component of that fact that was changed. This provides the user with an easy way to determine why the fact that they previously verified or approved is now appearing in the system as “needs review”.
The user can also see how that component of the fact was changed. For example, the user can be provided with a view of the fact as it was verified or approved, together with a view of how that fact subsequently changed. The user can then designate (or redesignate) a status for the fact based on their review of the change.
In some embodiments, the document processor 120 includes natural language processing functionalities. In some cases, the document processor 120 parses the received documents into n-grams and generate a plurality of terms based on the n-grams. As used herein, n-gram refers to a contiguous sequence of n words including numbers and symbols from a data stream, which typically is a phrase or a sequence of words with meaning. N-gram can include numbers and symbols, such as a comma, a period, a dollar sign, and/or the like. In some cases, the document processor 120 normalizes the parsed n-grams. Further, in some cases, the document processor 120 generates a plurality of normalized sections having normalized terms based on the n-grams. In one example, the plurality of intake terms include normalized n-grams. As one example, the n-grams is a date and the normalized term is the date in a predefined format (e.g., year-month-date). In some cases, the document processor 120 determines contexts of the normalized terms. In one example, the contexts are a part of a same sentence of the normalized terms. In one example, the natural language processor 120 parses the n-grams and labels the n-grams based on the contexts, for example, period, expense, revenue, etc. In some embodiments, a document processor 120 uses a natural language model for processing the document and parsed n-grams. For example, a natural language model can be a statistical language model, a neural network language model, and/or the like.
In some embodiments, the interface engine 140 is configured to interface with other systems 160. In some embodiments, the interface engine 140 is configured to connect to an electronic filing system or a finance system 160 via a software interface. In some cases, the interface engine 140 is configured to use a set of predetermined protocol through the software interface. In some cases, the software interface comprises at least one of an application programming interface and a web service interface.
In some embodiments, the output engine 145 is configured to generate a representation of XBRL document, suggested/predicted XBRL tags, labels of suggested/predicted XBRL tags, and/or tag confidence values. In some cases, a representation indicative of an XBRL tag includes a representation of a label associated with the tag. In some cases, the graphical user interface is received by a client application and rendered on a computing device of a user. In some cases, the output engine 145 is configured to receive inputs or requests submitted by users. In some cases, the output engine 145 can be configured to render representations to users. In some cases, the output engine 145 receives a type of a computing device (e.g., laptop, smart phone, tablet computer, etc.) of the user and is configured to generate a graphical presentation adapted to the computing device type.
In some embodiments, the representation of the tag confidence values includes an indication of corresponding categories of the tag confidence values. In one example, the tag confidence categories are represented by colors. For example, a high confidence category is represented by green, a medium confidence category is represented by yellow, and a low confidence category is represented by red. In one embodiment, an indication of a tag confidence category for each tag confidence value is included in the representation.
In some embodiments, the XBRL data repository 150 can include taxonomy data, XBRL datasets, suggested XBRL tags, selected XBRL tags, documents (including XBRL documents) received for analysis, and/or the like. The XBRL data repository 150 may be implemented using any one of the configurations described below. A data repository may include random access memories, flat files, XML files, and/or one or more database management systems (DBMS) executing on one or more database servers or a data center. A database management system may be a relational (RDBMS), hierarchical (HDBMS), multidimensional (MDBMS), object oriented (ODBMS or OODBMS) or object relational (ORDBMS) database management system, and the like. The data repository may be, for example, a single relational database. In some cases, the data repository may include a plurality of databases that can exchange and aggregate data by data integration process or software application. In an exemplary embodiment, at least part of the data repository may be hosted in a cloud data center. In some cases, a data repository may be hosted on a single computer, a server, a storage device, a cloud server, or the like. In some other cases, a data repository may be hosted on a series of networked computers, servers, or devices. In some cases, a data repository may be hosted on tiers of data storage devices including local, regional, and central.
In some cases, various components of the system 100 can execute software or firmware stored in non-transitory computer-readable medium to implement various processing steps. Various components and processors of the system 100 can be implemented by one or more computing devices, including but not limited to, circuits, a computer, a cloud-based processing unit, a processor, a processing unit, a microprocessor, a mobile computing device, and/or a tablet computer. In some cases, various components of the system 100 (e.g., the document processor 120, the interface engine 140, the output engine 145) can be implemented on a shared computing device. Alternatively, a component of the system 100 can be implemented on multiple computing devices. In some implementations, various modules and components of the system 100 can be implemented as software, hardware, firmware, or a combination thereof. In some cases, various components of the XBRL tag suggestion/validation system 100 can be implemented in software or firmware executed by a computing device.
Various components of the system 100 can communicate via or be coupled to via a communication interface, for example, a wired or wireless interface. The communication interface includes, but not limited to, any wired or wireless short-range and long-range communication interfaces. The short-range communication interfaces may be, for example, local area network (LAN), interfaces conforming known communications standard, such as Bluetooth® standard, IEEE 802 standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11), a ZigBee® or similar specification, such as those based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, or other public or proprietary wireless protocol. The long-range communication interfaces may be, for example, wide area network (WAN), cellular network interfaces, satellite communication interfaces, etc. The communication interface may be either within a private computer network, such as intranet, or on a public computer network, such as the internet.
In an embodiment, a user is provided with the ability to create an XBRL review 300 for the XBRL report 200. In one example, a user may create an XBRL review 300 for one XBRL document 250 of the XBRL report 200. In another example, a user may create an XBRL review 300 across multiple XBRL documents 250 of the XBRL report 200. Upon receiving a request from the user to create an XBRL review 300, the user may be prompted to give the XBRL review 300 a name 310, as shown in
In an embodiment, when an XBRL review is initially created, all XBRL facts (e.g., XBRL facts 260) in the XBRL document 250 are set to an initial review status 410 of “pending”. If, after an XBRL review has been initiated, a new XBRL fact is added to the XBRL document 250, that new XBRL fact is set to an initial review status of “pending”.
In an embodiment, the user may select multiple facts (e.g., multiple XBRL facts 260) having the same review status 410 and simultaneously update that status for all of the selected facts. In an example, the selected XBRL facts are all from the same XBRL document 250. In another example, the selected XBRL facts are from two or more XBRL documents 250. As shown in
In an embodiment, the user may select multiple facts (e.g., multiple XBRL facts 260) having different review statuses 410 and simultaneously update those review statuses 410 for all of the selected facts. As shown in
In an embodiment, a group of selected facts (e.g., XBRL fact 260) may be filtered according to their applied review status. In the example shown in
In an embodiment, the user may simultaneously update the review statuses 410 of a filtered set of facts (e.g., XBRL fact 260). As shown in
In an embodiment, the XBRL review system (e.g., XBRL review system 100) may display the facts count 1020 and facts status 1030 for a particular section by adhering to one or more display rules 1040. An example of such display rules 1040 is shown on the right side of
Each of the sections of the XBRL file outlined in the XBRL Review panel 1000 can be selected to get a further breakdown of the facts that are included in that section. An example of this is illustrated in
In an embodiment, once a fact (e.g., XBRL fact 260) has been designated as “verified” or “approved”, the system (e.g., XBRL review system 100) will monitor that fact for qualified changes and, when such a qualified change occurs, the system will update the review status for that fact to “needs review”. In one embodiment, the system will monitor “verified” or “approved” facts for changes to one or more of the following tagging items 1200, which are illustrated in
In an embodiment, when a fact that was previously designated as “verified” or “approved” is subsequently changed to “needs review” as a result of a change being made to the fact (e.g., to one or more components of the fact), the user is provided with the ability to view details about the change that was made. For example, by selecting a fact designated as “needs review” in the XBRL Review panel (e.g., XBRL Review panel 1000), the user is navigated directly to the Fact Details panel (e.g., Fact Details panel 400), which will give the user the ability to view the details of what has changed with respect to the fact. For example, the user may select a View Changes icon 1310 to view the details of what has changed with respect to the fact including, for example, when the change occurred, by whom the change was made, and the like. In an embodiment, the details of what has changed with respect to the fact may be presented to the user in a Change Details panel 1320, an example of which is shown in
In one or more embodiments, the XBRL review system (e.g., XBRL review system 100) includes commenting capability to foster collaboration among users. As shown in
In an embodiment, the XBRL Review system may include an XBRL Comments tab, which may be accessible via an XBRL Review panel (e.g., XBRL review panel 1000). An example XBRL Comments tab 1800 is shown in
As shown in
At step 3010, an XBRL document is received. At step 3020, a request to create an XBRL review for the XBRL document is received. At step 3030, a selection of an XBRL fact included in the XBRL document is received. At step 3040, a first review status, of a plurality of review statuses, is applied to the XBRL fact selected in step 3030. At step 3050, the XBRL fact selected in step 3030 is monitored to detect a change to the XBRL fact. In response to detecting a change to the selected XBRL fact, at step 3060, the first review status applied to the XBRL fact is updated to a second review status.
Various modifications and alterations of the disclosed embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The embodiments described herein are illustrative examples. The features of one disclosed example can also be applied to all other disclosed examples unless otherwise indicated. It should also be understood that all U.S. patents, patent application publications, and other patent and non-patent documents referred to herein are incorporated by reference, to the extent they do not contradict the foregoing disclosure.
This application claims the priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/416,162, filed on Oct. 14, 2022, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63416162 | Oct 2022 | US |
