please my first question here, I am working on a project on an accounting site to help generate an ixbrl file from the account details which are in json and xlsx format. Please has anyone worked with something similar that can put me through on how to go about it.
Welcome @Abiola Aribisala.
An ixbrl file, also known as Inline XBRL or the XHTML syntax of XBRL, requires two things:
Thus, in order to produce Inline XBRL syntax, you first need to have a print friendly version in a format that can be converted to XHTML (like Word, etc), as this cannot be automated just reading from JSON. I imagine that if the Excel file is nicely formatted, it might be possible to convert it to some "raw" XHTML in some way, too.
Second, for the tags, you need a data source with all the contexts, characteristics, etc for each fact value. If your JSON data is in xBRL-JSON format, it should contain this information. Otherwise, it requires extra work.
Finally, a challenge is knowing to put which tag where in XHTML, i.e. "merging" the print version with the data. In a regular setup, this comes from a common source that both generated the print version and the machine-readable data. That way, this common source can directly generate the Inline XBRL file and it is best for quality and correctness.
If the binding between the print version and the data is not available, one could in theory put all the tags in an ix-hidden section in XHTML, however it defeats the purpose of tagging the data exactly where it is on the XHTML page, i.e., it makes it less interactive.