Think of this as a surf report of sorts.
In our professional issues updates, I often talk about the “tidal waves” of change facing the CPA profession. The waves are bigger and more frequent, requiring us to gain more skills in order to ride these “waves of change.”
This surf report is about financial reporting standards and how you can have an impact.
There are three major waves coming at us (n the United States right now:
- IFRS for public companies (SEC)
- IASB-FASB convergence project
- Private company standards (the FAF Blue Ribbon Committee)
These three initiatives will be shaping the face of accounting significantly over the next few years.
Today I want to focus on private company standards. Written comments are now being accepted about the proposed standards. All of you CPAs in business and industry (preparers) and those of you in practice (auditors) have an opportunity to influence the work of this important group.
What are your biggest challenges with GAAP for private companies? What would you like to see in GAAP? Should it be compatible with international standards (IFRS)?
Click on this link and let them know what you are thinking.
By the way, Maryland CPAs overwhelmingly are asking for separate (less complex) standards for private companies and a majority of those want the standards to be compatible with international standards (IFRS or IFRS-SME). We will be providing the latest updates on this in our upcoming fall series of professional issues updates for our members.
We’d love to hear your thoughts below.
Surf’s up, dude!
Some more resources:
- Major news: FAF/FASB/GASB is now on Twitter! Follow them at www.twitter.com/FAFNorwalk.
- The AICPA has some excellent resources on the web (www.ifrs.com) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/ifrscom).
- Edith Orenstein covers this on her FEI Financial Reporting Blog. See her post, The World According to GAAP (or IFRS).
- See my earlier post, Lessons from a World-Class Surfer.