Accounting & Auditing Update

FASB is taking a fresh look at a method to account for intangible assets it just permitted for private companies, to see whether the rule should be granted to public companies as well. The new method allows private companies to bypass the current GAAP requirement to recognize separately from goodwill any customer-related intangible assets that cannot be sold or licensed independently from other assets or non-competition agreements. 

In its quest to simplify accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has adopted a new provision in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that spares companies the requirement to display extraordinary and unusual items in financial statements. FASB said stakeholders had expressed concerns that companies often faced uncertainty over when to consider an item unusual.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued two proposed accounting standard updates to simplify the accounting for income taxes. One would simplify accounting for the tax effects of intra-entity asset transfers, while the other focuses on the classification of deferred tax assets and liabilities that are carried on the balance sheet. FASB says the updates would align U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles with International Financial Reporting Standards. More inside.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has finished its simplification of the accounting requirements around measuring inventory, although the simplification is not as broad-based as first intended. The update says when performing subsequent measurements of inventory under either the first-in, first-out, or the average costs methods, companies should measure inventory at cost or net realizable value, whichever is lower. Details inside.

FASB has approved a new Accounting Standards Update meant to clear up inconsistencies in how companies classify cash payments and receipts on the cash flow statement. Tammy Whitehouse has more.

FASB has issued another proposed update to the massive new standard on revenue recognition to address more technical corrections and upgrades on a handful of narrow issues. Tammy Whitehouse has more.

FASB has proposed a big change in accounting for insurance companies that deal in long-duration contracts like life insurance, annuities, disability, and long-term care. Tammy Whitehouse reports.

Bankers expect CECL, a new rule on how to reflect credit losses in financial statements, to produce big accounting changes. According to Tammy Whitehouse, some say it is the biggest change ever.

FASB’s new consolidation guidance is meant to help companies better determine whether a particular entity should be consolidated to financial statements. More from Tammy Whitehouse.

FASB has published a new rule to combat diversity in restricted cash accounting and a new proposal to clarify the rules around stock compensation modifications.

FASB has finalized its action to eliminate “step two” from goodwill impairment testing, relieving public companies of the costly, complex fair-value exercise. More from Tammy Whitehouse.

Companies with employee benefit plans held in master trusts have some new accounting rules to learn and observe, courtesy of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has settled on a new way for companies to amortize, or write down the value, of certain debt securities.

Facing questions about how to transition to the new lease accounting requirements in 2019, FASB recently explained what it had in mind when it issued its guidance.

In a pair of updates to accounting standards, the FASB is looking to shore up differences in how companies account for stock compensation and service concession arrangements.

Companies may soon have some new instructions to follow in deciding how to account for various types of grants and contributions.

The FASB has issued its long-awaited standard to simplify hedge accounting, allowing companies to adopt the new approach almost immediately if they choose.

Just as new rules on revenue recognition required some tweaking as companies prepared to implement them, so apparently do the new rules on lease accounting.

FASB is proposing new clarifications to its previously issued standards on the recognition and measurement of financial instruments and on leases.

A new accounting rule on pension cost presentation will hammer another nail in the coffin of defined benefit pension plans as a form of compensation.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board plans at its next public meeting to discuss its controversial proposal to alter the GAAP concept of materiality.

FASB may have given companies a simpler way to determine whether goodwill must be marked down, but not all public companies are rushing to adopt it.

The lease accounting standard is about to get easier to adopt when it takes effect in 2019, but that doesn’t mean companies should slow their preparations.

FASB proposes a change to the new lease accounting standard taking effect in 2019 that promises to ease the implementation.

The FASB has decided it will fast-track a change to accounting rules to allow reclassification of the income tax effects of the recent tax reform law.