The marriage of rules and data is beginning to take shape as the Aounting Standards dification now includes some links to eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL).

The Financial Aounting Standards Board has added some functionality to the dification, which is the official electronic rulebook for all U.S. Generally Aepted Aounting Principles, to link aounting rules to XBRL tags. XBRL is the electronic format in which panies increasingly report their financial results. FASB says the dification now provides a list of all XBRL elements that ntain an electronic link to a paragraph in the dification, linking plete XBRL element names together with all dification paragraphs.

FASB says the dification references include both the text-based dification reference and an electronic link to the related dification paragraphs. FASB’s “Notice to nstituents” provides some further detail about dification references and electronic links embedded in the U.S. Financial Reporting Taxonomy.

Bruce Pounder, president of aounting cation firm Leveraged Logic, says the linkage between the dification and XBRL will be useful to public panies that are or will soon be required by the Securities and Exchange mmission to report financial data through XBRL. “It is important that the FASB has finally delivered what they led their nstituents to expect with regard to linking the dification and the U.S. Financial Reporting XBRL Taxonomy,” he says.

The XBRL taxonomy is a llection of electronic tags that are attached to specific quantitative or qualitative data in financial statements, says Pounder, enabling users to more readily interpret and pare data across various entities. Wherever GAAP requires or allows specific data in financial statements, there are one or more rresponding XBRL tags in the taxonomy, he said.

As an example, Pounder says, ASC 350-10-50-15 directs creditors to make certain quantitative and qualitative disclosures about impaired loans. The dification now ntains an XBRL Elements link at the end of that paragraph to show the list of XBRL tags associated with that requirement.

“That information would help the user apply XBRL tags rrectly and pletely to the ntents of financial statements when preparing an XBRL submission for the SEC or a third party,” Pounder says. “It would also help internal or external auditors verify that XBRL tags have been rrectly and pletely applied.”