The Seattle Method is a proven, industrial strength , scalable, good practices, standards-based approach to creating provably high quality XBRL-based general purpose financial reports when a report creator is permitted to modify the report model. The Seattle Method reduces the threat of inaccuracy in digital financial reports. The Seattle Method provides accountants the freedom and responsibility within a strict stabilizing framework of a highly developed system of XBRL-based digital financial reporting. The framework offers what can be thought of as “guardrails” or “bumpers” that help steer accountants toward high-quality machine-readable financial reports. Software applications can leverage this framework to create software which is easy for accountants to use and increases financial report quality.
The Seattle Method provides a framework, a structure (e.g. a model), and a process for working with digital financial reports. A framework is the principles, philosophy, set of explicit rules which establish boundaries, and supporting systems that enable and justify the creation of structures. A structure defines something and provides the "tracks" or "path" a process must follow. The process is the sequence of actions or methodology necessary to achieve the goal by utilizing the structure within the rules of the framework. You need all three: a framework to provide the approach and tools, the structures which are created, and the process to create the structures utilizing the framework. A structure is not a process. A process is not a structure. All of this is governed to minimize epistemic risk. And all of this works within the deterministic system which we call accounting.
The Seattle Method attempts to clarify, simplify, formalize, popularize, and systematize digital financial reporting which will potentially be used worldwide. The Seattle Method's contribution is in the codification of digital financial reporting; turning scattered ideas into a rigorous, elegant, teachable, repeatable methodology which can be reliably used to create industrial processes. This can result in industry norms for digital financial reporting using the XBRL global open industry standard.