Accounting
Recap of revision to repo accounting (topic 860)
John Hufnagle has a short recap of ASU 2001-03, Transfers and Servicing (Topic 860), (which deals with repo accounting) at his blog. His post is Repo Accounting (ASC 860) Changed by ASU 2011-03.
Common perception of the new ASU I’ve seen from commentators is that it is a response to the perceived abuses by Lehman Brothers.
Just how many pages are there in GAAP, SAS and SSARS?
For your general entertainment, just wanted to let you know that there are 7,692 pages in the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC, which constitutes GAAP) and 226 pages in SSARS.
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Just how many pages are there in GAAP, SAS and SSARS?Read More »
Certificates of deposit are not ‘investments’ so they are not subject to the accounting and disclosures of Topic 320–Investments
Sometimes I’m late to the party. Just read an AICPA TIS saying that certificates of deposit are not investments subject to the accounting and disclosure requirements of topic 320 – investments. The reason? Because CDs do not meet the definition of an investment.
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A glimpse of IFRS and the really big players in the accounting world from the world of really small players
Today I’ll provide a brief glance at the huge end of the accounting world. I’m intentionally a one-person firm providing attestation services. My market is small nonprofits. I perceive most of the visitors to my blogs are from small CPA firms and small NPOs. As a result, all the readers here and I have a view of the small end of the accounting world.
Today’s questions: will US GAAP ever converge with IFRS, and what do financial statements look like for a really big company.
Will convergence with IFRS ever happened?
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Looks like FASB is NOT backing off on lease accounting (Topic 840)
Uh, oh. In part four of the Journal of Accountancy’s interview with FASB chair Leslie Seidman, she made it clear that the comments at the FASB’s website about their meeting in February do not mean they are changing the direction they’re going on leases.
They still intend to bring most material leases on to the balance sheet.
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Looks like FASB is NOT backing off on lease accounting (Topic 840)Read More »
AICPA interview with FASB chair on revenue recognition – how that illustrates the issue with IFRS too
Journal of Accountancy has started a five-part interview with FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman discussing the revenue recognition exposure draft. First part can be found here.
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More concerns on IFRS
Those of us serving the business and NPO communities from smaller firms need to keep current on issues that are going to change our future. IFRS is one of those issues.
“Convergence Flaws” v. Convergence Spin by Dr. Tom Selling, CPA, contrasts two speeches on IFRS. One by David Tweedie, the IASB chair, and the other by David Reilly, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal. The first one is obviously a push for adoption of IFRS. The second one raises major reservations.
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FASB is backing off on the lease accounting changes to Topic 840
Looks like FASB is listening very seriously to the comment letters on leases. They seem to be backing off on some of the strongest components of the lease revisions. (See Update below!)
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FASB is backing off on the lease accounting changes to Topic 840Read More »
Overview of the new SASs
If you want to start looking at all those new SASs that will go into effect for our 2013 audits of 12-31-12 financial statements, the AICPA website has a page for the Clarity Project.
Two documents give an overview:
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In a peer review, you are graded against your quality control document – don’t set the bar so high you cannot meet it
CPA firms have a lot of latitude in defining their quality control system. There are basic components that must be addressed, but firms have the ability to define for themselves how to get there.
One think to keep in mind is that during a peer review your firm’s written quality control document (it has to be written by the way) and SQCS 7 will be the criteria against which your firm will be graded. The highest standard set by either of those two documents will be your standard. How could this create a problem for you?
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Explain to me again why IFRS is a good idea
If you’ve been having reservations about the train that is heading full steam down the IFRS track, here are a couple of posts from an IFRS critic to increase your concerns .
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Sighted on the distant horizon: Massive change to financial statement presentation
Can you picture the balance sheet and income statement rearranged so they look like the cash flow statement, with an operating, investing and financing section? No grand totals of assets or total revenue shown on the statement?
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Sighted on the distant horizon: Massive change to financial statement presentationRead More »
FASB reaffirms efforts to converge with international standards
Numbermonger blog has update here on FASB and IASB reaffirming their goal for convergence. See the link for discussion and observations along with link to the FASB comment.
Welcome to my new blog!
Greetings, and welcome to my new blog. I am still blogging at Nonprofit Update, found at www.ulvog.wordpress.com. Why the new site? I am talking to two very different audiences: the nonprofit community and CPAs working in the attestation area. Thus, I will split my writing between two different blogs.
Many of the previous posts of interest to CPAs have been brought into this blog. Some of these posts are deleted from the other blog and some are left there. In the future, posts related to the NPO world will be at www.ulvog.wordpress.com, comments specific to the CPA community will be here, and comments of interest to both will be cross-posted.
I hope this will be of help as you keep up to date with the torrent of changes in the attestation world. Enjoy!