Element

An element (a.k.a. term, report element, thing, entity, node, subject, object) is a logical statement that defines an idea or notion used by the logical conceptualization. An element may be privative and therefore not decomposable or an element can be compound and decomposable into a set of primitive elements.  Elements tend to be nouns.

An example of primitive elements might be the elements "assets”, “liabilities”, and “equity”. 

An example of a compound element might be “balance sheet”.

An element has a collection of labels and a collection of references. Every element MUST have a standard label.

The following is a summary of the different types of elements:

  • Network (a network might not be an element; I think it might be a Structure).
  • Hypercube
  • Dimension
  • Member
  • Line Items
  • Abstract
  • Concept
The following matrix shows the allowed and disallowed connections between the different types of elements within a report model (i.e. XBRL presentation relations):

Technical:

An element is a molecule. An element is represented using an  XBRL taxonomy schema. 

This XBRL definition linkbase specifies the permitted and disallowed relations between the different types of elements.

References can be rather complex because of the nature of reference parts. A simplified version of references is provided for report models.  More complex versions of references tend to be used only for base reporting frameworks.

Commentary:

The permitted and disallowed relations between the different types of elements is not specified by the XBRL technical specification.

Terms is an alias for element.  Terms, part of Mastering XBRL-based Digital Financial Reporting, explains elements in more detail.

Additional Information:

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