Accounting

Certificates of deposit are not ‘investments’ so they are not subject to the accounting and disclosures of Topic 320–Investments

Sometimes I’m late to the party.  Just read an AICPA TIS saying that certificates of deposit are not investments subject to the accounting and disclosure requirements of topic 320 – investments.  The reason?  Because CDs do not meet the definition of an investment.

Certificates of deposit are not ‘investments’ so they are not subject to the accounting and disclosures of Topic 320–Investments Read More »

A glimpse of IFRS and the really big players in the accounting world from the world of really small players

Today I’ll provide a brief glance at the huge end of the accounting world. I’m intentionally a one-person firm providing attestation services. My market is small nonprofits. I perceive most of the visitors to my blogs are from small CPA firms and small NPOs. As a result, all the readers here and I have a view of the small end of the accounting world.

Today’s questions: will US GAAP ever converge with IFRS, and what do financial statements look like for a really big company.

Will convergence with IFRS ever happened?

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Looks like FASB is NOT backing off on lease accounting (Topic 840)

Uh, oh.  In part four of the Journal of Accountancy’s interview with FASB chair Leslie Seidman, she made it clear that the comments at the FASB’s website about their meeting in February do not mean they are changing the direction they’re going on leases.

They still intend to bring most material leases on to the balance sheet.

Looks like FASB is NOT backing off on lease accounting (Topic 840) Read More »

AICPA interview with FASB chair on revenue recognition – how that illustrates the issue with IFRS too

Journal of Accountancy has started a five-part interview with FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman discussing the revenue recognition exposure draft.  First part can be found here.

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More concerns on IFRS

Those of us serving the business and NPO communities from smaller firms need to keep current on issues that are going to change our future.  IFRS is one of those issues.

“Convergence Flaws” v. Convergence Spin by Dr. Tom Selling, CPA, contrasts two speeches on IFRS.  One by David Tweedie, the IASB chair, and the other by David Reilly, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal.  The first one is obviously a push for adoption of IFRS.  The second one raises major reservations.

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In a peer review, you are graded against your quality control document – don’t set the bar so high you cannot meet it

CPA firms have a lot of latitude in defining their quality control system.  There are basic components that must be addressed, but firms have the ability to define for themselves how to get there.

One think to keep in mind is that during a peer review your firm’s written quality control document (it has to be written by the way) and SQCS 7 will be the criteria against which your firm will be graded.  The highest standard set by either of those two documents will be your standard.  How could this create a problem for you?

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Sighted on the distant horizon: Massive change to financial statement presentation

Can you picture the balance sheet and income statement rearranged so they look like the cash flow statement, with an operating, investing and financing section?  No grand totals of assets or total revenue shown on the statement?

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Welcome to my new blog!

Greetings, and welcome to my new blog.  I am still blogging at Nonprofit Update, found at www.ulvog.wordpress.com.  Why the new site?  I am talking to two very different audiences: the nonprofit community and CPAs working in the attestation area.  Thus, I will split my writing between two different blogs. 

Many of the previous posts of interest to CPAs have been brought into this blog.  Some of these posts are deleted from the other blog and some are left there.  In the future, posts related to the NPO world will be at www.ulvog.wordpress.com, comments specific to the CPA community will be here, and comments of interest to both will be cross-posted.

I hope this will be of help as you keep up to date with the torrent of changes in the attestation world.  Enjoy!

Welcome to my new blog! Read More »