Question

1. Explain how accountant can, and should, play a major role in all phases of producing XBRL report.

2. The trial balance lists the balances for all general ledger accounts. If all activities have been properly recorded, the total of all debit balances in various accounts should equal the total of all credit balances. If they don't., a posting error has occurred. How can one detect such an error?

Answer 1

1. Accountants can initially begin by selecting the taxonomy to ensure compatibility across the XBRL reports. Different countries and industries have various standard taxonomies and an accountant with his specialized knowledge of GAAP and organizations business practices can help choose the best taxonomy. Each data item is then mapped to a corresponding element in the selected taxonomy. Although taxonomies are standardized to fit each organization's requirement, however they cannot cover all business situations. Accountants in this case can help build tags to report accounting information more accurately. They also can ensure that information is appropriately displayed by participating in creating style sheets.

2. The following methods can be applied to detect such errors:

(i) Compare the general ledger totals to that of the subsidiary ledgers and check if they are tying. Any difference must be investigated and corrected.

(ii) All transactiosn that have occured at the end of the accounting period must be checked if they have been recorded in a proper time period.

(iii) Any suspense or clearing accounts have been opened and if the balances in these accounts are zero. A zero balance in these accounts ensures that a general ledger always balances.

(iv) The journal vouchers must be listed by the general account number facilities in identifiying the cause of errors in the general ledger account.

(v) The journal vouchers can be listed by numerical sequence ,date and account number to indicate any absence of journal entry postings.