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Linking liabilities as negative

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I would like to link a couple of liability lines from my BS to my LTD schedule. However, in the LTD schedule I need these items to show as negatives, what's the best way of going about this. 

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4 comments

Date Votes
  • Mike

    Hello and welcome to the Community, Jennifer!

    Super question. I'd be curious to see how others handle this as well, but here's something you could do to maintain linking and XBRL applied.

    In your LTD note section of your Spreadsheet, create a negative reference cell to the value in the your BS, something like...

    =-'BS'!A1

    Here's a quick example:

    This creates the negative version of the value in your balance sheet. From here, you can link that referenced number to your Document. The advantages here is when your value is updated in your balance sheet, it also updates in this formula and therefore your linked location.

    Does this make sense? Let me know what questions you have for me on the above or if you need anything else. Thanks for your contributions and happy Tuesday 😊.

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  • Nicole P.

    I'm using documents with cross-checked numbers already rounded to thousands and want to use them as the basis to have balance sheet B subtracted from balance sheet A. I don't want to have to go into the underlying spreadsheets i.e. I just want to reference and rely on the already rounded and reviewed documents. In the last two years, has a more sophisticated means of applying a negative to a linked underlying positive value through formatting been deployed, or is it still necessary to create extra steps in the source workbooks?

    Thank you.

     

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  • Jennifer C.

    OK, it has been 3 years since the original post. Mike has Workiva fixed this yet? I have the exact same scenario as Nicole P. above. I want to be able to link liabilities and show them as negative without adding that extra step. Any word on this?

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  • Mike

    Thanks for keeping me honest here, Jennifer. I owed you a follow-up, Nicole.

    As noted here, this is currently not possible and the above workaround is the best option still. That said, I'll be sure that our development team sees both your instances and we'll keep you updated. Appreciate your patience and input here. Thanks and have a super day!

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