Last month the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board jointly issued their long-awaited converged standards on revenue recognition.
The FASB standard will take effect for U.S. public companies in 2017 and a year later for U.S. private companies. To someone who was heavily involved in the convergence effort, the issuance of what is effectively a global standard on revenue recognition represents a crowning achievement in the more than decade-long program of convergence between the two accounting standards boards. Somewhat ironically, however, it may also represent, at least for a while, the last we see in terms of major standards issued by either board that converge U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards.
