Filing Indicators

Proposed Recommendation 9 December 2020

This version: https://www.xbrl.org/Specification/filing-indicators/PR-2020-12-09/filing-indicators-PR-2020-12-09.html
Editor: Paul Warren, XBRL International Inc. <pdw@xbrl.org>
Contributors: Mark Goodhand, CoreFiling <mrg@corefiling.com>; Paul Hulst, De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. <P.J.Hulst@dnb.nl>; Revathy Ramanan, XBRL International Inc., <revathy.ramanan@xbrl.org>

1 Abstract

Filing indicators are a mechanism used in template-based XBRL reporting systems that allow filers to explicitly state which "templates" or "reporting units" they have completed. This specification provides standardised syntax for filing indicators that is compatible with the XBRL Open Information Model.

2 Introduction

Filing indicators are a mechanism that allows the prepare of an XBRL report to make explicit statements about which templates have and have not been included in the report. Good modelling practice requires that where the same piece of information is reported in multiple templates, it is modelled in the same way and represented in an XBRL report as a single fact. This means that the presence of a fact in a report does not necessarily indicate that complete data for all templates that include that fact are included in the report.

In current usage, the "templates" referenced by filing indicators correspond to Table Linkbase tables, but this is not required by this specification.

Filing indicators in use at existing projects are modelled using tuples and make use of a custom attribute (i.e. one not defined in an XBRL specification). The Open Information Model does not support tuples or custom attributes. This document defines an alternative syntax for filing indicators that is compatible with the OIM, and accompanying transformations that allow conversion between the current syntax and the proposed new syntax.

2.1 Terminology

The key words inconsistent duplicates in this document are to be interpreted as described in Duplicates in XBRL.

2.2 Namespaces and namespace prefixes

This Specification uses a number of namespace prefixes when describing elements and attributes. These are:

Prefix	Namespace URI
fi	http://www.xbrl.org/taxonomy/int/filing-indicators/PR/2020-12-09
ef-find	http://www.eurofiling.info/xbrl/ext/filing-indicators
xbrldi	http://xbrl.org/2006/xbrldi

Where this Specification identifies an element or attribute which includes a prefix described above, for example, fi:templateDomain, this should be interpretted as a qualified name, and as such, implementers MAY use any prefix (or no prefix) which resolves to the correct namespace.

3 Implementation

This specification is accompanied by a Filing Indicator Taxonomy (see Section 7), which provides a set of standard components for reporting filing indicator information.

The taxonomy consists of a single concept (fi:filed) which is repeated once for each template. The template is identified using the fi:template typed dimension.

3.1 The fi:filed concept

The fi:filed concept is used to make an explicit assertion about whether the template identified in a fact's fi:template dimension has been reported or not. The concept uses xbrli:booleanItemType. Reporting a fact using this concept with a true value is an assertion that the corresponding template has been filed. A false value is an explicit assertion that the corresponding template is not included in the report.

3.2 The fi:template dimension

The fi:template typed dimension is used to identify the template to which each fi:filed element relates. The corresponding domain element, fi:templateDomain, uses the xsd:token type. The value of this dimension is a unique identifier for the template.

The association between identifiers and templates is implementation dependent. Existing implementations use labels in a specified role attached to Table Linkbase tables.

3.3 Uniqueness

In order to avoid providing potentially conflicting information about the status of a given template, fi:filed which are inconsistent duplicates MUST NOT be reported. Multiple fi:filed facts MAY be reported with the same value on the fi:template dimension, provided that they are differentiated by other aspects such as period, or another dimension, although implementations MAY choose to further restrict this in local filing rules.

4 Definitions

This specification provides a number of definitions relating to filing indicators for the benefit of XBRL Formula function definitions, and other documents that need to refer to filing indicators in a syntax-independent manner.

5 Transformation from tuple-based syntax

This section describes the mapping between the syntax defined in this specification, and the tuple-based syntax defined in the EuroFiling taxonomy. A description of these filing indicators can be found in the EBA XBRL Filing Rules. An example of three filing indicators using the EuroFiling taxonomy is shown in the example below:

<ef-find:fIndicators xmlns:ef-find="http://www.eurofiling.info/xbrl/ext/filing-indicators">
    <ef-find:filingIndicator contextRef="c2">C_00.01</ef-find:filingIndicator>
    <ef-find:filingIndicator contextRef="c2" ef-find:filed="true">C_01.00</ef-find:filingIndicator>
    <ef-find:filingIndicator contextRef="c2" ef-find:filed="false">C_02.00</ef-find:filingIndicator>
</ef-find:fIndicators>

This example indicates that templates "C_00.01" and "C_01.00" have been reported (in the first case, the omitted ef-find:filed attribute defaults to true) and that "C_02.00" has not been. Although the indicators are grouped in a tuple parent, this group carries no semantic importance.

To transform this to the syntax defined in this specification, each ef-find:filingIndicator element is replaced by an fi:filed element, with a value equal to the effective value of the ef-find:filed attribute. The fi:filed element must have a find:template dimension with a value equal to the value of the ef-find:filingIndicator element. Aside from the addition of the find:template dimension, all other aspects (e.g. period, entity identifier and scheme, all other dimensions) of the fi:filed element MUST be the same as those of the corresponding ef-find:filingIndicator element.

Processors performing this transformation MUST process all ef-find:filingIndicator elements occuring with any ef-find:fIndicators parent. An error MUST be reported if applying the transform results in facts which are inconsistent duplicates.

The result of applying the transformation to the above example is shown below. Some content of the xbrli:context elements has been omitted for clarity.

5.1.1 Filing indicators using Filing Indicators Specifcation

<fi:filed contextRef="c1">true</fi:filed>
<fi:filed contextRef="c2">true</fi:filed>
<fi:filed contextRef="c3">false</fi:filed>

<xbrli:context id="c1">
    ...
    <xbrli:scenario>
        <xbrldi:typedMember dimension="fi:template">
            <fi:templateDomain>C_00.01</fi:templateDomain>
        </xbrldi:typedMember>
    </xbrli:scenario>
</xbrli:context>

<xbrli:context id="c2">
    ...
    <xbrli:scenario>
        <xbrldi:typedMember dimension="fi:template">
            <fi:templateDomain>C_01.00</fi:templateDomain>
        </xbrldi:typedMember>
    </xbrli:scenario>
</xbrli:context>

<xbrli:context id="c3">
    ...
    <xbrli:scenario>
        <xbrldi:typedMember dimension="fi:template">
            <fi:templateDomain>C_02.00</fi:templateDomain>
        </xbrldi:typedMember>
    </xbrli:scenario>
</xbrli:context>

5.2 Transformation to tuple-based syntax

Transforming filing indicators reported according to this specification into the tuple-based syntax defined in the EuroFiling taxonomy is the reverse of the process described in Section 5, noting that:

6 Extensibility

The fi:template dimension MAY be used with other concepts in order to convey other information about that template. For example, a concept could be used to provide a reason why a template has not been filed. Such concepts would need to be defined in the taxonomy for the reporting system.