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Still something wrong with Notes/Disclosures - perhaps time for a new approach #652

@mpreiss9

Description

@mpreiss9

Feature Category

  • [X ] New API functionality
  • Performance improvement
  • Developer experience improvement
  • Documentation enhancement
  • Tool/utility addition

Problem Statement

The new Notes and Disclosures capability is not really working out.

notes = xbrl.statements.notes()
disclosures = xbrl.statements.disclosures()

do not produce all the notes and disclosures. And many of the ones provided aren't helpful as they are malformed or textual.

Take for example AMAT 2022 10-K. (Any other year would work too). In the physical filing we see Note 8, Balance Sheet Detail. This Note has several tables: Inventories, Other Current Assets, PPE, Deferred Income Taxes and Other Assets, Accounts Payable and Accrued Expenses, Other Liabilities. Each table takes a line item from the Balance Sheet and expands on it, which is extremely useful as the Balance Sheet is very brief (only 5 items in Liabilities!).

Neither notes nor disclosures using xbrl.statements as above will provide these tables. They are completely missing. HOWEVER, if the user knows to do:

specific_notes = xbrl.statements.search('Balance Sheet Detail')

then these items are found.

Who would benefit from this feature?

  • Beginner Python users working with SEC filings
  • [ X] Financial analysts and researchers
  • [ X] Advanced developers building financial applications
  • Data scientists working with financial datasets

Proposed Solution

Perhaps we should move to the approach Arelle uses. It's also what the SEC uses to produce the csv datasets. Each table in the filing is provided it's own number and can be accessed individually.

I'd consider this rather low priority. After examining about 100 physical 10-K reports, it does seem like there is rough uniformity in how Notes/Disclosures are labelled. I think by building a manageable list of search terms it should be possible to access most of the information desired, using xbrl.statements.search


Feature requests are evaluated based on EdgarTools' core principles: Simple yet powerful, accurate financials, beginner-friendly, and joyful UX.

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