Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

I have been reading a recent paper by Mark Bauman (Univ. of Northern Iowa) and Richard Francis (Univ. of Texas – El Paso) published in Accounting Horizons (June 2011) on the topic of lessor accounting. For those academics who follow this standard setting topic, you already know there is a relative dearth of research that [...] Read more > >

Lease accounting has received a lot of attention recently, given the fairly substantial changes being proposed by the FASB and the IASB in their joint project on lease accounting. One area of lease accounting that hasn’t raised as much discussion is how to account for short-term leases (i.e., leases with terms of less than one [...] Read more > >

Implicit in the FASB’s conceptual framework is a balance sheet (rather than an income statement) perspective. This has nothing to do with the relative decision usefulness of balance sheet vis-à-vis income statement information. Instead, it is the result of a decision (which I agree with) to define income in terms of changes in net assets. Despite [...] Read more > >

Last week Danielle Zeyher joined us for a round table discussion of the FASB’s latest exposure draft on lease accounting. If you haven’t clicked on “more” at the bottom of the first page of this post, do so now. If you’d like to hear the audio of the leases session, click here.  If you’d like a [...] Read more > >

Thanks to Danielle Zeyher, FASB project manager, and all who participated in a lively and informative FASRI round table on proposed new lease accounting standards. The FASB and IASB are preparing what could be a giant step that would bring more than $1 trillion of debt onto balance sheets of public U.S. companies alone (e.g., The Analyst’s Accounting Observer, [...] Read more > >

Our next FASRI roundtable is with Danielle Zeyher, manager of the FASB-IASB leases project.  Please mark your calendars for 4pm Eastern time on Wednesday October 6th.  More information will follow as we approach the time of the session. Read more > >

On Tuesday the FASB released the proposed accounting standard for leases. Comment letters should be sent either to the FASB or the IASB. The boards will jointly consider any comment letters received. So, as it pertains to leases, “speak now or forever hold you peace.” Comment letters are due December 15th. Read more > >

I’ve just finished reading the IASB/FASB exposure draft on revenue recognition, and I have all kinds of questions running through my head. But before I get to those questions, let me first say that I am very impressed with this document. In fewer than 90 paragraphs of guidance (ignoring application guidance), the IASB/FASB have laid [...] Read more > >

A recent CFO.com article talks about some pros and cons of the proposed leasing standard (FYI, the article says the exposure draft should come out in June). Having recently finished a couple of financial accounting courses, I’m excited to be done away with the 90% rule, the 75% rule, and the other two rules I [...] Read more > >

A recent Journal of Accountancy article states that the SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker would support the FASB’s cutting the number of convergence projects due for completion in 2011. Here’s one excerpt from that article: “June 30, 2011, is an arbitrary deadline and it’s not one that’s been put in place by the SEC or by [...] Read more > >