The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently released the proposed 2015 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy for public review and comment. The deadline to submit written comments is October 31, 2014. The taxonomy is a list of computer-readable financial reporting labels coded in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), an open-source computer language that allows companies to tag the financial data. The tags allow users of financial statements to electronically search for, assemble, and process data. Business Wire brought this news to us in their article, “2015 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy Available for Public Review and Comment.”

The proposed 2015 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy contains updates for accounting standards and other recommended improvements to the official taxonomy. The 60-day comment period is intended to allow users of the taxonomy to provide feedback on these updates.

The most cumbersome part of generating accurate XBRL documents is the searching of correct concept definitions. Tagging the financial data will improve the search feature and thus the findability of data.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.