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XBRL Amount of names for a business fact

How can we know beforehand the number of names that can a business fact in XBRL receive on XBRL instance documents?

For example if we want to find the Revenue of companies by looking into XBRL instances for this business fact alone we can meet different names for this same fact as:

  • us-gaap:Revenues
  • us-gaap:SalesRevenue
  • us-gaap:SalesRevenueNet

The target is to find out a finite amount of names that every business fact can receive and then for every business fact loop all these names until we fine the one that is in the instance document.

is there a lexicon if you will where it has all of these names into one file? This is a theoretical question but requires technical expertise.

And most importantly since there are many lookalike names for a business fact can a name in one XBRL instance mean one fact and on the other instance document mean another business fact?

EDIT

Do you believe this is the place where all the namings exist. If it is why are they stored in xml? There should be element names and nothing more...

Solution

  • The elements are different because they refer to different things. The SalesRevenueNet element is defined as follows:

    Total revenue from sale of goods and services rendered during the reporting period, in the normal course of business, reduced by sales returns and allowances, and sales discounts.

    The Revenues element is defined as follows:

    Amount of revenue recognized from goods sold, services rendered, insurance premiums, or other activities that constitute an earning process. Includes, but is not limited to, investment and interest income before deduction of interest expense when recognized as a component of revenue, and sales and trading gain (loss).

    (I can't find an element in the US GAAP taxonomy named SalesRevenue, so I can't comment on that one.)

    The SalesRevenueNet element is a value summed from other elements, including Sales Revenue, Goods, Net, Shipping and Handling Revenue, Sales Revenue, Shipping, Net, and several other elements. The SalesRevenueNet element is, in turn, an item in the summation of the Revenues element, which also includes elements such as Financial Services Revenue. In algebraic terms, it looks like this:

    SalesRevenueNet = SalesRevenueGoodsNet + ShippingAndHandlingRevenue + ...
Revenue = SalesRevenueNet + FinancialServicesRevenue

    The XBRL Taxonomy Viewer might provide a better view into some of these relationships. Go the Taxonomy Viewer and do the following:

    1. Select the "All Taxonomies" item in the "2013 US GAAP Taxonomy" section from the "Open Taxonomy" dialog that pops up when you bring up the site.
    2. At the bottom of the page, in the "Search" tab of the "Tools" section, type in the name of an element (such as SalesRevenueNet) and click the "Search" button.
    3. Click on the element name in the Search Results list. After a bit of time, the pane in the upper right will refresh with information about the element you selected, such as labels, references, and calculation information.