If you’re still straining to keep up with the big changes that are coming in accounting standards, now is a good time to get up to speed before the Financial Accounting Standards Board returns from its summer recess next week to resume its regular meeting agenda.

The FASB took a two-week break from its usual meeting schedule, which lately has consisted of numerous sessions in any given week with its own staff in Norwalk, Conn., and with the International Accounting Standards Board. But the summer holiday comes to an end next week when the board convenes to discuss loss contingencies, a proposed new disclosure framework, and some proposals from the board’s Emerging Issues Task Force.

Although the FASB is a on a fast track to issue a host of major new accounting standards as part of its effort with the IASB to converge U.S. and international rules, the board has coupled that with an effort to get resources out that can help key stakeholders grasp the new era of accounting that is just dawning. In addition to the usual discussion papers and exposure documents laying out the full technical detail of its plans, the board also is publishing user-friendly summaries and producing podcasts and webinars that explain the major new initiatives as they are proposed.

For its planned overhaul of financial statement presentation, for example, the board has produced a webinar that provide s technical overview of a staff draft proposal and a podcast that provides a high-level description of the proposal and describes outreach activities the board is planning to further explain the plan.

To get in touch with changes that are in store for accounting for loss contingencies, the board has produced a two-page, quick-read summary of the proposed new standard and a podcast in which FASB member Tom Linsmeier explains how and why the disclosures around loss contingencies would change.

Working with the IASB, the FASB also has produced a number of materials to help explain the changes coming in fair value measurement and disclosures. The IASB hosted a mini-slideshow and a podcast on measurement and uncertainty, focused primarily on investors’ interests but informative to anyone. The two boards also produced a webinar on the fair value exposure draft giving a high-level overview of the exposure drafts and who they are intended to both improve and eliminate differences in U.S. and international financial reporting.

The FASB also has archived a number of other webcast and webinar events as well as podcasts that explain the changes coming in revenue recognition, financial instruments, and the convergence effort, among others.

Following four major accounting standards proposals in the second quarter, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is preparing to publish three more in the third quarter, focused on accounting for leases, insurance contracts and loss contingencies.

In addition, the FASB plans to publish a discussion paper in the third quarter that will ask investors, analysts, preparers, auditors and anyone else with an interest in accounting rules: How would you like to see all of these standards rolled into place?

FASB members Tom Linsmeier and Marc Siegel hosted a webcast last week to provide a high-level summary of what the FASB has accomplished so far in achieving its herculean push to converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles with International Financial Reporting Standards and what lies ahead in the coming months. The FASB recently modified its plan with the International Accounting Standards Board to lay out “an unprecedented number of exposure drafts and standards that will be finalized over the next year or two,” said Linsmeier.

Following major standards proposed in the second quarter on financial instruments, comprehensive income, revenue recognition, and fair value measurement, the FASB and IASB convergence plan calls for additional major proposals on leases and insurance contracts in the third quarter, said Linsmeier. Separate from the convergence plan, the FASB also will publish a revised proposal for how companies should be required to account for and reflect contingencies in their financial statements.

Perhaps the least converged of the convergence projects, said Linsmeier, is the FASB and IASB proposals on how to account for financial instruments. The FASB published a single exposure draft while the IASB is working on a phased approach, and the boards have some different views on where to require fair value measurement and how to require companies to reflect impairments or losses in value.

Linsmeier said the two boards have exposed their different approaches for public comment in hopes that the comment and deliberation stages will help them bridge their differences. The financial instruments project “might be the poster child project” for the total convergence movement, he said. “If we can’t get converged (on financial instruments), it would suggest the convergence effort is going to be challenged and questioned on a significant basis.”

While the boards have set a mid-2011 target date to complete the major convergence projects, Linsmeier said the time line isn’t set in stone because it is dependent on the comment and deliberation processes. “It is a target date, not an absolute date,” he said.

The boards also have not determined effective dates for the standards, pending comments on their planned third-quarter discussion paper asking how best to transition to a slate of major standards. Siegel and Linsmeier both acknowledged the enormity of the change that is coming with the significant number of major proposals that are emerging, and they emphasized the best way to cope with it is to get involved by studying and commenting on the proposals.

Staff members at the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have published a preview of how a new standard on financial statement presentation might read.

The two boards have reached some tentative decisions that are outlined in a draft standard and published to get folks thinking further about the direction in which the standard is moving. FASB and IASB said in a recent update on their efforts to converge U.S. and international accounting rules that they would undertake some further outreach with stakeholders on the effort to reorganize financial statement presentation before publishing it as a formal exposure draft.

Staff members plan to seek input from users of financial statements to evaluate how the proposed system would benefit their analysis and their resource allocation or investment decisions. They also plan to query preparers on the effort and the cost that would be involved in adopting the new approach. Through more field work, field testing and experimental research, the staff will be looking for more information on the benefits and costs of the proposals, and especially their implications for financial services entities.

The FASB and IASB are rewriting the manner in which financial information is presented to make it more cohesive, easier to comprehend, and more comparable across different entities. The proposals would establish a common structure for each of the financial statements with required sections, categories, subcategories and related subtotals. It would result in the display of related information in the same sections, categories and subcategories across all statements.

The boards say the standards that will eventually be proposed will improve the comparability and understandability of information presented in financial statements by standardizing the way it is presented, particularly how it is classified and how it is aggregated or disaggregated. The boards plan to review the added information and publish an exposure draft in early 2011.

In another significant step toward convergence of accounting rule books, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have published their joint proposal for a new and improved approach to the recognition of revenue.

The standard simplifies and streamlines the complex, convoluted web of guidance scattered throughout U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, while it also beefs up the overly simplified standard in International Financial Reporting Standards. It is among the earliest in an expected onslaught of new accounting rules that the two boards plan to issue this year and finalize in 2011 to eliminate key differences between the two sets of rules.

“Revenue recognition is the most common, important accounting policy of any company around world,” said FASB member Leslie Seidman in a podcast discussing the proposal. “If we’re going to have one converged standard, this should be it. And there are opportunities for both of us to improve the standards we have.”

The overarching objective of the proposed standard is to require companies to recognize revenue from contracts with customers when they transfer goods or services to the customer for the amount of the transaction. The boards expect it to improve both GAAP and IFRS by removing inconsistencies in existing requirements, providing a framework for addressing revenue recognition issues, improving comparability across markets, clarifying the accounting for contract costs, and enhancing disclosures.

Seidman noted it was a bumpy ride when the two boards first started ironing on their difference in revenue recognition, but ultimately they arrived at a joint agreement on the entire proposal with no alternative views offered from either board. “It’s the same proposal with unanimous support on both boards,” she said. “That’s a far cry from where we were a couple of years ago when we had very divided views.”

The exposure draft will be open for public study and comment for four months, through Oct. 22, after which the boards will hold roundtables internationally to hear further feedback and debate. During the comment process, the boards will conduct further field visits, said Seidman, “to see how easily companies are able to apply the proposed requirements to their contracts and whether it makes sense.”

With nearly a dozen major changes in accounting coming in the next year, folks in public accounting and finance may be wondering what the heck they’re thinking over at the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Chairman Robert Herz recently gave a window into the thought process in a speech at a recent accounting conference at the University of Southern California.

FASB has dramatically stepped up its joint sessions with the International Accounting Standards Board to hash out the details of nearly a dozen major standards that are due to be finalized in 2011. The original deadline was June 2011 for all the targeted standards, but the boards are updating their plans and deferring at least a few of those projects into the latter part of 2011 to give preparers and users of financial statements a little more time to digest it all.

In part the boards are working to meet a mid-2011 timeline set by the Group of Twenty Nations, who asked the boards to make it a little easier on companies in Brazil, Canada, India, and Korea, as those countries adopt International Financial Reporting Standards in 2011 or 2012. “If at all possible, it would make sense to have the new standards issued before their companies have to make the change to IFRS in order to avoid them having to switch twice,” Herz said, according to his prepared remarks.

But there’s also the pending retirement of IASB Chairman David Tweedie along with the planned departures by retirement or term expirations for five other IASB members. “These people have been at IASB throughout the development of these projects, and board member turnover can significantly delay or change a project,” he said.

Herz said FASB is not merely allowing itself to be dragged on a fast pace to accommodate international concerns. Many of the standards that are changing are long overdue for improvement, he said, and FASB is mindful of its duty to balance the convergence objective with the interests of U.S. investors and the U.S. public. “So our aim is to try to achieve both improvement and convergence together,” he said. “Not always easy.”

The FASB chairman acknowledged the work that is going into the breakneck pace and admitted it can’t continue indefinitely. FASB has never issued more than four major standards in one year and it’s never had more than two to three major exposure drafts out for comment at one time, he said.

“I am proud to say that so far my fellow board members and our staff, both FASB and IASB, have risen to the occasion,” he said. “But I do fear potential burnout, as it’s not so easy to be running a marathon at sprint speed.”

He reminded that the European Union and many other countries have made wholesale adoptions of IFRS and done so successfully. And he acknowledged change can be difficult, but said it will lead to progress if users and preparers work with the board to help get the rule changes right.

“If you care, and I think you should care, get engaged,” he said. “I know there are other priorities and issues beyond accounting and financial reporting that require your attention. But this is important. It matters.

Accounting standard setters are pulling up the reins on their aggressive push to finalize major rule changes by the middle of next year, but only a little.

Robert Herz, chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and David Tweedie, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, sent a letter to the Group of 20 Nations along with a separate statement saying they’re reprioritizing the flow of new accounting standards after constituent groups have pleaded that the planned onslaught of new rules is too much, too quickly.

The two chairs said while they originally planned to finalize a dozen standards by mid-2011 as part of their effort to eliminate major differences between their two rule books, they’re now pushing the target completion date for “a few” of those standards into the second half of 2011. The chairs said they will publish no more than four major proposals, or exposure drafts, each quarter, to give preparers and users of financial statements more time to study and react to each one.

A FASB spokesman said there are no details available on how the boards are reprioritizing the standards and which may be pushed further out to completion.

The chairman told the G20 leaders they are still committed to meeting the G20 call for convergence on major differences in U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards and promised continual updates on their progress. “It is expected that this action by FASB and IASB will not negatively impact the Securities and Exchange Commission’s work plan, announced in February, to consider in 2011 whether and how to incorporate IFRS into the U.S. financial system,” the chairmen wrote.

FASB and IASB said their modified strategy for completing the major convergence projects will allow more focus on projects expected to produce the biggest improvements. The boards also said they plan to publish a separate consultation document asking for stakeholder input about how best to transition the new standards into place.

Finance executives are beginning to balk at the enormity of change that is brewing in accounting rules, just as accounting rulemakers are delaying plans to seek input on a full-scale plan for adopting nearly a dozen major new standards.

Financial Executives International sent a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board suggesting the two boards slow things down in their breakneck effort to eliminate major differences between U.S. and international accounting rules. The two boards are moving swiftly to achieve a mid-2011 target date to adopt nearly a dozen new accounting standards that would lead to greater convergence of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards.

Meanwhile, FASB and IASB have put off plans to seek broad input on when and how it should consider introducing the major changes that are in store. FASB and IASB were scheduled to hammer out a discussion paper that would ask for advice on how to roll out the major standards that are developing, but the dialogue has been tabled. An IASB spokesman said it should be back on the agenda in June or July while an FASB spokesman says it will be early fall 2010.

Arnold Hanish, chairman of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting, said in his letter to the two boards the group is concerned about the “unprecedented volume as well as the complexity of proposed standards” that the two boards are developing. The committee fears the vast scope and aggressive timeline for the proposals will not allow adequate analysis of how the rules will work, which will lead to implementation problems and amendments further down the line.

Hanish calls on the boards to consider advancing no more than three to four proposals at a time to give more time for a thorough analysis. “We believe that showing reasonable, measured, and meaningful progress with clear regard for due process will demonstrate the commitment by the boards to convergence,” he wrote.

In his letter, Hanish says the member companies of the Committee on Corporate Reporting are “extremely concerned with the 10-plus exposure drafts” that are expected through the third quarter of 2010. “During any single period in time in its 38-year history, FASB has had no more than three or four significant EDs out for public comment,” he wrote.

The committee is further concerned that many of the proposals would call for changes that are interrelated, which would make the analysis even more important and at the same time more difficult. As an example, he says, the proposal to rewrite how financial statements are presented will dictate what information preparers must gather under other standards that are also changing. Similar overlap exists with proposals on revenue recognition and leases, and with liabilities and financial instruments.

Hanish says the committee doubts there are adequate technical resources available in industry to study and react to so many proposals at once, and they doubt FASB or IASB has the resources to fully study the feedback and possible consequences of all the proposals as well.

Accounting rulemakers are putting the finishing touches on a report that will update capital markets on their efforts to converge U.S. and international accounting standards.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board are expected to publish the first of what will become a series of quarterly reports to document their progress in making U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards more consistent with one another. The two boards announced in November they would provide quarterly updates on their convergence progress given the implications on some important policy fronts.

For one, the Securities and Exchange Commission has hinged its plan for moving U.S. capital markets to IFRS on the ability of the two boards to eliminate substantial differences between GAAP and IFRS. The SEC published a work plan this week updating where it stands on adopting IFRS in the United States, and the plan focuses on the convergence movement as a key criteria for when and how the Commission ultimately will transition U.S. registrants over to IFRS.

Even further, the Group of Twenty nations are watching the convergence effort, hoping it will eliminate differences in accounting standards that it believes may have played a role in the economic crisis.

A spokesman for IASB said the two boards are expected to issue their first joint quarterly progress report very soon. A spokesman for FASB said the various project updates posted by the two boards demonstrates “quite a bit of progress” in recent months.

“We remain committed to working with IASB,” said spokesman Chris Klimek. “(We) appreciate the SEC’s leadership and additional guidance on this important matter, and like everyone, we will be studying the work plan carefully in the days ahead and discussing what it means for us.”

Facing a tidal wave of new accounting requirements that are coming on board, a committee of Financial Executives International is appealing to rulemakers to think carefully about when and how a host of new standards will take effect.

Arnold Hanish, chairman of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting and chief accounting officer at Eli Lilly, wrote to the chairmen of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board to ask them to consider the big picture as they set effective dates for some substantial new accounting requirements.

Hanish was referring specifically to FASB’s and IASB’s projects on financial statement presentation, leases, pensions, revenue recognition, financial instruments, and liability and equity, all of which are key to the two boards’ efforts to converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Standards with International Financial Reporting Standards.

The boards are acting under a tight timeline to seek convergence on some key areas in the two accounting rulebooks by mid-2011, in part to satisfy the Group of Twenty nations that identified differences in accounting standards as at least a contributing factor to the economic crisis.

Hanish called on FASB and IASB to “deliberate the effective dates and transition of the major convergence standards holistically, rather than on a standard-by-standard basis,” he wrote, to reflect how significant the transition will be for companies adopting the new standards and how interrelated some of the new requirements will be.

In his letter, Hanish described some of the interdependencies among the new requirements that will impact how companies will implement them. New requirements for financial statement presentation, for example, will impact what information must be gathered, which will have an impact on other convergence standards. Likewise, a new definition for a liability will impact what types of assets and liabilities would be accounted for under a new standard for financial instruments, he wrote.

As such, Hanish called on the boards to consider an aggregated effective date for the final converged standards with a three-year implementation period, giving companies the option to adopt early if they’re prepared to do so. “Providing adequate time for the body of converged standards will allow companies to thoughtfully identify the impacts, develop approaches that respond to the change, implement and test solutions, and conduct the necessary training to impacted internal and external individuals specific to their company and industry needs,” he wrote.

FASB and IASB continue to make substantial progress on the core convergence standards, meeting monthly in extensive sessions to reach dozens of preliminary decisions. The boards expect to issue an exposure draft on a new method of financial statement presentation in April 2010.

They’re also identifying areas, however, where they can’t agree and will issue standards that differ. In the financial statement presentation project, for example, FASB plans to require entities to disclose operating assets, liabilities, and cash flows by reportable segment while IASB will not require such a breakdown. IASB meanwhile plans to require the presentation of net debt information as part of the analysis of change and will include minimum line item requirements for the statement of financial position while FASB will not.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board reached some key agreements this week to finalize a proposed new approach for explaining income information to investors.

The two boards reached some verbal agreements in their joint project on how companies would be required—or in some cases allowed—to present information in a “statement of comprehensive income,” a new financial statement that would replace the existing income statement.

The idea is to provide a more comprehensive view of an entity’s income, in part to scuttle the almighty reliance currently placed on the “net income” figure that becomes the bottom line on existing income statements. The new statement is aimed at giving a more balanced view of not only profit-and-loss figures but also other comprehensive income, which reflects gains and losses that have not yet been realized. That often includes things like gains or losses on securities or derivatives, pension costs, or foreign investments and currency hedges.

At a joint meeting, the two boards agreed that an entity would be required to display total comprehensive income and its components in the new statement of comprehensive income, but it will have some flexibility to name the two key sections. One section has to display profit-or-loss figures, and the other has to display other comprehensive income as it is defined in current accounting standards.

The boards agreed they’ll retain existing requirements that give entities an option to display components of other comprehensive income before or after related income tax expense has been factored in, but they have to provide one amount for the aggregate income tax effects on the face of the statement. Entities can decide if they will link income tax effects related to each component of other comprehensive income on the face of the statement or in the footnotes.

The new standard will not redefine what goes into other comprehensive income or what goes into each of its components, the boards determined. Staff at FASB and IASB are preparing the draft standard that will be voted on by both boards. The boards are projecting an exposure draft to be published at the end of the first quarter.