The International Journal of Digital Accounting Research recently published an interesting paper called Visualizing Basic Accounting Flows:Does XBRL+Model+Animation=Understanding by four authors from the Oregon State University. They propose an online Accounting Flow Visualizer (AFV) that consumes XBRL data from S.E.C. filings to present a new kind of visualization of a corporate filer’s financial position.

University of Oregon - Accounting Flow Visualizer (AFV)

While the visualization that the AFV produces is deliberately basic, it doesn’t much matter because as the authors point out “…it makes sense as we explore the analysis utility of XBRL as opposed to its impact on reporting efficiency.” They have focused on the visualization of flows and of change (between filings) so their AFV can be animated to allow both backward and forward animation in the data set. Which all highlights another practical use for XBRL data: Teaching accounting relationships and potentially, financial scenario forensics.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 4:05 am and is filed under Analytics, XBRL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.