How do balance-sheet instants differ from income-statement durations?

A date and an interval answer different questions

An instant fact describes a value at a particular date. A duration fact describes an amount over an interval, with a start and an end. Those contexts should not be flattened into one unlabeled year column.

For example, assets at year end and revenue earned over the preceding year have different time meanings even when their end dates match. Comparing them requires an explicitly chosen analytical definition; their shared end date does not make them the same kind of observation.

Retain the context when copying a value

Save “as of” for an instant and both dates for a duration. Do not invent a beginning date for an instant simply to make a table look consistent. The absence of a duration start is meaningful for that fact type.

The two Apple rows below preserve this distinction. They are reported values with separate units and concepts, not a ratio, forecast or assessment of the company’s present condition.

Reported source example

Apple Inc. · CIK 320193 · Total assets

Reported source example

Apple Inc. · CIK 320193 · Revenue

Primary sources and related references

• SEC: XBRL financial data and reporting contexts

• Browse the historical financial references
• Review the existing company-comparison overview