The feedback so far on writing a new rule book for accounting disclosures generally supports the idea of creating a benchmark to allow preparers to use judgment in deciding what disclosures are necessary. Views are split, however, on whether to base such a benchmark on relevance of specific bits of information to a given investor group or the more familiar standard of materiality.

A summary of two separate forums hosted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Center for Audit Quality says sophisticated investors and users of financial statements aren't concerned with reducing the volume of disclosures. More casual readers of financial statements, however, are very interested in discussing what can be done to streamline disclosures.

FASB and CAQ hosted the two forums in October -- one at Stanford University and another at Columbia University -- to gather ideas on what might be done to improve financial statement disclosures other than through changes to current disclosure requirements.

FASB is in the early stages of considering possible approaches to improving the effectiveness of disclosures in notes to the financial statements. The board issued an invitation to comment in July, looking at different approaches the board might consider to set disclosure requirements and exploring how disclosure requirements could be made somehow more flexible to enable companies to disclose what truly matters to their business and their investors.

Participants in the two forums generally supported the idea of considering improvements to disclosures throughout the entire financial report, not just notes to the financial statements, suggesting the Securities and Exchange Commission might need to get involved in any meaningful initiative. They also liked the idea of using whatever latitude there might be within the existing disclosure regime to pursue more immediate improvements rather than writing and entirely new disclosure framework first.

FASB Chairman Leslie Seidman said the board is working with the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group on the disclosure framework to see how disclosure requirements in the United States could be become more comparable with rules abroad. “The issue is global, and it makes a lot of sense to work cooperatively to address it,” she said in a recent speech.