A solution is said to be coming soon to a thorny technical issue that some observers had feared could temporarily render electronic financial reports tagged in eXtensible Business Reporting Language less useful than had been hoped.

The issue revolves around the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s new codification of accounting standards, which is set to launch July 1 and be effective for financial filings made after September 15.

One key advantage of XBRL-prepared electronic reports is that each data-tagged line item displays references to the accounting and regulatory rules applicable to that item. That gives users of the financial statements valuable context for the reported number.

But the current XBRL taxonomy — that is, the set of tags corresponding to the line items — aligns with the precodification organization of the FASB literature. A new taxonomy incorporating references to the codification is scheduled to be released in early 2010. But to prevent users of data-tagged reports filed between Sept. 16 and the date of that release from seeing references to standards that don’t match up with the new codification, an extension to the current (2009) taxonomy is needed.

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