To help accounting professionals easily navigate through 50-plus years of unorganized US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and standards the Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation approved the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification (Codification.) By codifying authoritative US GAAP, FASB will provide users with real-time and accurate information in one location. Concurrently, FASB developed the FASB Codification Research System; a web-based system allowing registered users to electronically research accounting issues. Since 2009, the codification became the single source of nongovernmental authoritative GAAP.
Various standard setters issue authoritative literature that is included in the Codification, literature not included is considered nonauthoritative. FASB, the Emerging Issues Task Force, the Accounting Principles Board, and the American Institute of CPAs are a few standard setters that create the authoritative literature included in the Codification. The Codification also includes content issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission that are relevant to financial statements.
When conducting research on the Codification Research System in regard to an accounting issue there are three primary ways to perform the search: by the word search function, the “Go To” feature, or the browse by topic option. For example if we were to use Capitalization of Interest as our research topic we can type the topic in the search field and search the entire codification. The “Go To” feature is available for more experienced users that know the specific codification Topic, subtopic, and section codes. The last option is the browse by topic option, which takes you dir...
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...fication came about and how to understand the organization of the Codification. FASB also created a visual tutorial that demonstrates the features and functions that the website offers. Knowing how to use the Codification Research System will allow you to research accounting issues more efficiently and effectively.
Works Cited
"Accounting Standards Codification: Notice to Constituents (v4.1) About the Codification." FASB: Financial Accounting Standards Board. 30 Apr. 2010. Web. 26 Nov. 2010. .
FASB Codification. Digital image. FASB Accounting Standards Codification Professional View. FASB. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. .
Financial Accounting Standards Board. (1985). Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 86. Norwalk. Retrieved April 7, 2014, from http://www.fasb.org/cs/BlobServer?blobkey=id&blobnocache=true&blobwhere=1175820922177&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername2=Content-Length&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue2=189998&blobheadervalue1=filename%3Dfas86.pdf&blobcol=url
The goal of the Codification is to simplify the organization of thousands of authoritative U.S. accounting pronouncements issued by multiple standard-setters. To achieve this goal, the FASB initiated a project to integrate and topically organize all relevant accounting pronouncements issued by the U.S. standard-setters including those of the FASB, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF)
IASB revenue recognition benchmarks entering the merging venture comprised of two gauges, IAS 18 and IAS 11. IAS 18 worries about revenues including offer of products, administrations, intrigue, eminences and profits. IAS 11 centers around development contracts. Likewise with all IASB gauges, these standard give standards-based direction without particular direction at the exchange level. The guidelines of U.S. GAAP, gave by FASB, then again comprise of an arrangement of more than one hundred revenue related direction of particular principles on an industry and exchange level; in any case, a great part of the general direction is given by Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 5, a non-legitimate wellspring of U.S. GAAP. The IASB and FASB are ready to embrace a joint standard on revenue recognition. This new world standard would adopt an advantage obligation strategy, for example, that of pre-meeting IFRS, while containing more particular direction than IFRS clients are acquainted with seeing, taking a signal from the GAAP guidelines of the United
generally accepted accounting principles. Another portion of the notes section, consolidated financial statement details, outlines
One of the most debatable topics in the accounting industry today is the extent in which we should make the financial statements understandable to the general population. The FASB currently gears its reporting standards toward...
Until late 2002, financial reporting standards (FRS) in New Zealand were developed based on a sector neutral approach. This meant a single set of accounting standards were applied to all entities regardless of which sector they were operating in. This was achievable because when FRS was created, the financial reporting standards board (FRSB) took into account that entities in the public sector, not-for-profit sector and private sector would be applying these standards. This included having to think about a broad range of transactions, different reasons for carrying out transactions, the readers of financial statements for all sectors, and the information that those readers needed (Brady, 2009). Not only did FRS account for the range of entities that would be applying the standards but it was also written in a language that was appropriate and made sense for all entities in each sector (Brady, 2009). However, since the decision to
... standard and help to reduce the preparer cost. And it has also enhanced the financial statements decision usefulness and make the organization prepare for expanded disclosure requirements.
“The President and CEO of FEI, Colleen Cunningham, ranks revenue recognition in the top 3 financial reporting issues faced by accountants today. In 2006, a survey was conducted in the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council and the FASB. Majority of the members in both organizations felt that finding the solutions to the issues regarding revenue recognition should be FASB’s top priority. (Graziano 2005).” In this paper some of the challenges and issues concerning revenue recognition and the procedures set in place by various accounting organizations, including FASB will be discussed.
In 2001, an outline was approved by the IASB to offer direction in creating accounting standards. The outline has 4 main objectives, namely 1) defining the aims and objectives of financial statements 2) identification of features that create useful information 3) explaining the basic facts of financial statements and 4) and offering theories of capital maintenance.
The IASC Board approved the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) Framework ( in April, 1989) which was a successor of the IASC Board, and it accepted its Framework in April 2001 (Wells, 2011)[ Wells, M J. C., (2011). Framework-based Approach to Teaching Principle-based Accounting Standards., Accounting Education: an international journal., 20(4), 303-316.]. International standards are developed by IASB which are named International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Although IASB took the place of IASC with its accounting standards, its IAS (International Accounting Standards) is enforced by IASB until now. The conceptual framework is helpful when it is used to develop the setting of International accounting standards. First of
Accounting for financial instruments and the issues that go along with it have been an ongoing issue throughout the years for businesses. As a result the Financial Accounting Standards Board have handed down decisions regarding the valuation method that should be used. Whether these decisions are truly the best way to value financial instruments has been up for debate. The earliest decision came down in May of 1993 when the Financial Accounting Standards Board passed Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 115. According to the Financial Accounting Standards Board this statement addresses the accounting and reporting for investments in equity securities that have readily determinable fair values and for all investments in debt securities. These investments are classified in one of three different categories. (Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB], n.d.) For debt securities that a company intends to hold until maturity are classified as “held to maturity” securities. For debt and equity securities that are purchased and then held for the purpose of them being sold in the...
Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Accounting Standards Codification TM. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), 2010. Web. 16 May 2014.
...GAAPs to IFRS (Zeff, 2012), decreasing their costs of financial reporting and benefiting investors by using one set of standards. This adoption was not without criticism by academics from Germany, Spain, and Austria that believed the proposed changes to the IASB Conceptual Framework were swayed intensely by the collaboration between the IASB and the FASB (Gebhardt, Mora, & Wagenhofer, 2014)
So for the purpose of this paper let's take a step back and look at the main reasons for why financial reporting practices still differ across most countries today. Since the 14th century when the double-entry accounting system bookkeeping was developed by in Northern Italy and used by Venetian merchants. The two different accounting methods, Anglo-Saxon and Continental-European have always managed to co-exist separately. However, due to the rise of the emerging markets, international harmonization of accounting standards is an important topic in this globalizing economy. Standard setters, company managers, and researchers alike are interested in the evolution of global standards. All current indications are that harmonization will be a ready, it is just a matter of how fast it will happen, who will set the global...
The International Accounting Standards Board, (IASB), began life as the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in the 1973. The IASC was created in June 1973 as a result of an agreement by the accountancy bodies of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland and the United States. These countries constituted the Board of IASC at that time.