When FAS 123R came into effect in 2005, it had been finally ordained that stock option grants must be accompanied by some modicum of expense recognition. The FASB had fought the good fight and had won — sort of. A…
If the FASB and IASB are doing such a good job mucking up financial statements by working together on convergence projects, why have they decided to go their separate ways in their quests to seek a cure for disclosure dysfunction? Based…
Shortly after my most recent post on the AICPA's new FRF for SMEs, NASBA issued a press release that was clearly intended to keep the public spat between the two national organizations from escalating: "The AICPA and NASBA are committed…
(Note to readers — I have deleted the reference to Worldcom in a previous version of this post. A dialogue with one reader caused me to re-consider my statement that account roll forwards could have saved an audit process that…
The AICPA, in its spat with NASBA over its recently released Financial Reporting Framework for SMEs (my very own critique is here), has loudly and often declaimed that the purveyors of GAAP are supportive of their new non-GAAP option. That is,…
It recently occurred to me that the ongoing Disclosure Framework project and the comatose Financial Statement Presentation project have three things in common: Neither current disclosure nor presentation standards promote high quality financial reporting (perhaps one of the few things…
A couple of posts ago, I waded in on the infamous Reinhard & Rogoff spreadsheet error, in an attempt to extract lessons of a cautionary nature for accountants of public companies. Since then, two interesting developments have occurred. First, I…
Rob Nance of iShade, the online accounting network, recently interviewed me for his own blog. With Rob's permission, I'm repeating (with some minor edits to my responses) his post, below. * * * * * Ever read The Accounting Onion?…
I have been a habitual spreadsheet user for 30 years, and a Keynesian for, like, forever. That particular pairing of predilections is probably why I experienced a brief and thrilling shiver of Schadenfreude as I read one of the many…
My best insights (but who am I to judge?) come from reading something for which accounting is the furthest thing from the author's mind: "My own view is that people tend to underestimate the pace of technological change but they…