US GAAP Classes (Prototype)

For more information please concact CharlesHoffman@olywa.net or go to http://xbrl.squarespace.com/journal/2014/12/31/understanding-the-benefits-of-classification.html.

Elements of Financial Statements

SFAC 6 defines 10 elements of financial statements:

• Assets: Probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events.
• Liabilities: Probable future sacrifices of economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events.
• Equity: Residual interest in the assets of an entity that remain after deducting its liabilities. Called shareholders' equity or stockholders' equity for a corporation, partners' capital for a partnership, or proprietors' interest for a sole proprietorship.
• Investments by owners: Increases in equity resulting from transfers to it from other entities of something of value to obtain or increase ownership interest in it.
• Distributions to owners: Decreases in equity of a particular enterprise resulting from transfers to owners.
• Revenues: Inflows or other enhancements of assets of an entity or settlements of its liabilities during a period from delivering or producing goods, rendering of services, or other such activities that constitute the entity's ongoing major or central operations.
• Expenses: Outflows or other using up of assets or incurrences of liabilities during a period from delivering or producing goods, rendering of services, or other such activities that constitute the entity's ongoing major or central operations.
• Gains: Increase in equity from peripheral or incidental transactions of an entity.
• Losses: Decrease in equity from peripheral or incidental transactions of an entity.
• Comprehensive income: Change in equity of a business enterprise during a period from transactions and other events and circumstances from nonowner sources. Includes all changes in equity during a period except those resulting from investments by owners or distributions to owners.

These elements are 'the building blocks' with which financial statements are constructed - the classes of items that financial statements comprise. (Elements of Financial Statements. Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 6 (Stamford, Conn.: FASB, 1985, par. 5.)

However, to represent financial reports digitally more details are necessary. This additional detail are 'classes' of concepts which are expressed in the US GAAP XBRL Taxonomy.

Classes and Classification

A classification scheme is an arrangement of types or sets of things into useful groups. Using the SFAC 6 elements as an example, all 'assets' would be in one group and all 'revenues' in a different group. Something cannot be both an asset and revenue. Groups or classes are related to other groups. For example, the accounting equation 'assets = liabilities and equity'.

Relations Between Classes

Classes can be related to other classes in specfic ways. Set theory can be leveraged. The following is a summary of some of the types of common relations:

• Element-class: Equivalent to owl:Class, rdfs:Class and rdfs:type. The element A is a defined to be class B. (Example, the taxonomy element us-gaap:Assets (which is an individual) is defined as being the class fro:Assets) (I AM NOT SURE THAT THIS IS CORRECT.)
• Class-subClassOf: Equivalent to rdfs:subClassOf. Class A is a specializetion of Class P. Ability to organize classes into a hierarchy of general-special terms. Similar to SKOS notion of broader terms versus narrower terms.
• Class-equivalentClass: Equivalent to owl:equivalentClass. Class A and class B have the exact same members. (Example, class LiabitiesAndPartnerCapital and the class LiabilitiesAndStockHolderEquity are both equivalent to LiabilitiesAndEquity.)
• Class-sameAs: Equivalent to owl:sameAs. Class A and class B are the exact same real world thing. (Example, the class Equity and the class NetAssets are exactly the same thing.)
• Class-differentFrom: Equivalent to owl:differentFrom. Class A and class B are the NOT the same real world thing. (Example, the class Assets and the class NetAssets are NOT the same thing.)
• Class-disjointWith: Equivalent to owl:disjointWith. Things belonging to one class A cannot also belong to some other class B. (Example, a member of the Person class set of things can never be a member of the Country class set of things.)
• Class-complementOf: Equivalent to owl:complementOf. Things that are members of one class A are all the things that do not belong to the other class B (Example, a member of the class of LivingThings set of things is the entire set of things that do not belong to the DeadThings set of things.)
• Class-inverseOf: Equivalent to owl:inverseOf. A relationship of type X between A and B implies a relationship of type Y between B and A. (Example, IF starsIn inverseOf hasStar; AND IF MenInBlack hasStar WillSmith; THEN WillSmith starsIn MenInBlack)
• Class-unionOf: Equivalent to owl:unionOf. The members of set C include all the members of set A and all the members of set B.
• Class-intersectionOf: Equivalent to owl:intersectionOf. The members of set C include all the members of set A that are also members of set B.
• Whole-hasPart: Neither OWL nor RDFS has equivalent. The whole A has part B. (Example, the whole BalanceSheet has part Assets.)
• IsPartOf-whole: Neither OWL nor RDFS has equivalent. The part A is part of the whole B. (Example, the part Assets is part of the whole BalanceSheet.)

*

*

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.