After years of trying to work with the FASB on a revised conceptual framework, the IASB finally decided to abandon the goal of a fully converged framework and to finish a document for its own use. A draft is imminent,…
The FASB has issued Proposed Accounting Standards Update EITF 2015-15B, Recognition of Breakage for Certain Prepaid Stored-Value Cards. If finalized, it would change the way that retail merchants who sell gift cards for redemption at other stores account for “breakage”…
On April 29th, the FASB issued proposed ASU 2015-240, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606): Deferral of the Effective Date. It is widely expected that the Board will adopt a one year delay in the effective date of its new revenue…
I have already warned you that if high quality financial statements from oil and gas companies are what you are looking for this year, you won’t find much of that in 2014 annual reports. In this post, I’m going to…
My inspirations for this post are the maiden speech of the SEC’s new chief accountant James Schnurr, and the joy of paying only $2.02/gallon at the pump. As for Mr. Schnurr, I plan to dissect his remarks more fully in…
Pick any class of upper-level accounting students, and give them a few cases of supplier/customer relationships for which “gross versus net presentation” of revenues is an issue, and I’ll wager that the class will come to a consensus on the presentation…
In my previous post, I expressed my opposition to the FASB's proposal for replacing the LOCOM rule for inventory with “lower of cost or net realizable value." I stated that the extant U.S. GAAP on LOCOM embodied a principle of…
There is so much I would like to write about, yet so little time... I could write about the latest half measure on the accounting for repurchase agreements (ASU 2014-11)— and that Tom Linsmeier’s lone dissent is highly similar to…
“FASB is preparing to consider foundational changes that could significantly alter financial reporting in the future as well as standards improvements that will reduce complexity, board Chairman Russell Golden said … in a speech at the 13th annual Financial Reporting Conference…
Two posts ago, I provided two reasons for the PCAOB* to take the opportunity of its auditor’s report project to look closely at the meaning of, “fairly presented … in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”: Truth in labeling —…