One XBRL Error Report

Here's a report from XBRL Cloud that shows errors, warnings and inconsistencies (expect some inconsistencies but not many per filing). Not sure what they're basing this on so it's offered more in the way of showing how transparent the data is.

http://xbrlcloud.com/edgar/edgar-index.html

Comments

[TonyP]

Interesting. The Hershey filing has a ton of "errors", but at least the very first one of these "errors" is not an error in the human-readable report, rather it's an error in the non-visible meta-data, or in the error checking itself.

Here's the (consistent) data for 2009 from http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47111/000004711109000038/f10q_2q2009.htm
...
Property, Plant and Equipment, at cost 3,400,412
Less-accumulated depreciation and amortization (1,959,882)
Net property, plant and equipment 1,440,530

The above is a correct calculation. However, it gets flagged as an error because a weight of -1 gets attached (how?) to the depreciation, which is already negative. As a result, the checker thinks the correct calculation should be 3,400,412 - -1,959,882 = 5,360,294 :
[Angle brackets replaced by square brackets here because I can't find a way to get angle brackets to display]
http://xbrlcloud.com/edgar/filings/0000047111/0000047111-09-000038/0000047111-09-000038-signals.xml
...
[sum]
...
[concept]
{http://xbrl.us/us-gaap/2008-03-31}PropertyPlantAndEquipmentNet
[/concept]
[label]Property, Plant and Equipment, Net[/label]
[document-value]1440530000[/document-value]
[effective-value]1.440530E+9[/effective-value]
[calculated-value]5.360294E+9[/calculated-value]
...
[addend]
[concept]
{http://xbrl.us/us-gaap/2008-03-31}AccumulatedDepreciationDepletionAndAmortizationPropertyPlantAndEquipment
[/concept]
[label]Less-accumulated depreciation and amortization[/label]
[document-value]-1959882000[/document-value]
[effective-value]-1.959882E+9[/effective-value]
[weight]-1[/weight]
...

The reason an error got flagged is that the calculated value is different from the document value (the latter is correct.) AFAICS, this happens because of the weight of -1 (shown above). Where did this come from -- was it inferred by the checker, is it part of the spec that I can't see, or was there a document submitted by Hershey that had this incorrect weight in it? I couldn't find a weight for this line in any of the docs visible on the linked Edgar Hershey page.

Are most of the "errors" like this?

Just curious.

[Jeff]

The weights are for calculation relationships between parent and child elements. If they had a -1 weight relationship between accumulated depreciation and property plant and equipment (which makes sense), then they can probably easily resolve the error by using a reverse markup for their accumulated depreciation, and then using a reverse sign for their presentation. This, basically, would allow them to show the accumulated depreciation as a negative figure (with brackets) in the presentation of their rendered balance sheet, while flipping the sign for calculation validation purposes so that it goes into the defined calculation as a "positive" number to be subtracted (hence the -1 weight) from PP&E.

Alternatively, they might be able to define the calculation weight as +1, and then tag the Accum. Deprec. figure as a negative (as they've done). That way, both the presentation and calculation of the parent and child are correct. Not sure though if they can change the weighting here though. I know you can in places where the parent doesn't have a weight assigned to it (e.g., in the "Net Cash provided by (used in) Operating Activities" on the statement of cash flows, you can change weights in the calculation, since the parent element doesn't have a defined weight).

[Jeff]

Basically, what I'm saying is that Hershey's should have resolved their consistency errors, and there are correct ways to do it, rather than filing something that's littered with inconsistent calculations.