In the cash flow statement, a number of items will roll up into Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities. Without the balance attribute, the calculation weights are not checked. This means that filers are not restricted on the weight they use and no XBRL specification error will result. Historically, a large number of companies have used an incorrect weight and as a result, the element being added into Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities has an incorrect sign (i.e. Is negative when it should be positive).
For example, if a company is adding Gain Loss on Sales of Loans Net into «Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities», the gain is a credit item and thus all gain amounts should be entered as a positive amount and losses as a negative amount in the instance document. Because this is a reversal to net income of the non cash amount, the company should deduct any gain from net income, or add back any loss into net income to get a representation of the cash portion of net income. If the company used a positive weight, to make the calculation work, they would need to reverse the sign on the element (i.e. the gain is entered as a negative). In this manner the calculation works and the totals are accurate. Unfortunately, the filer has incorrectly entered the gain as a negative when a gain for this element should be entered as a positive. To correct the error, the filer needs to change the calculation weight to negative 1 and change the sign on the element GainLossOnSalesOfLoansNet to a positive amount.
The filer should treat the element NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities as if it had a debit balance. This means any debit balance items rolling into it must be positive. In the graphic below, an example company has included DepreciationDepletionAndAmortization as a debit balance item with a negative weight in the calculation. This calculation child will be flagged as an error. In serious hyperlink the actual filing, the value of this element was entered as a negative value to make the calculation work.
Calculation Linkbase in the Cash Flow Statement
All the calculations associated with the cash flow statement MUST be included in the role associated with the cash flow statement in the filing. The calculations for the Cash Flow Statement should not be put in a different role than the cash flow presentation tree. Any additional cash flow calculations, representing alternative calculations, should be included in a parenthetical cash flow role.
The calculation linkbase must start with a single durational element representing the increase or decrease in the cash for the period. There should not be more than one root element in the calculation that could be included in the increase or decrease in cash for the period. The following figure shows where a filer has used multiple root elements (shown as clear circles) representing the change in cash and the adjustment for non cash items. The increase decrease in cash during the period should be the only parent or root element in the calculation for the cash flow statement.
Rules
The presence of multiple parent elements means that the cash flow calculation is incomplete. The tree with the incorrect weights (above) demonstrates the use of a single parent for the calculation.
If the cash flow statement has additional calculations defined for supplemental cash flow information, these calculations should be defined in the parenthetical calculation role. For example, those companies that use the direct method should show the direct method calculation relationships in the cash flow calculation tree. The supplemental reconciliation of operating cash flow derived from net income for direct method reporting should be shown in the parenthetical cash flow calculation tree. Both calculations should NOT be shown in the same calculation tree, as the values will be double counted.