Finance executives are beginning to balk at the enormity of change that is brewing in accounting rules, just as accounting rulemakers are delaying plans to seek input on a full-scale plan for adopting nearly a dozen major new standards.

Financial Executives International sent a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board suggesting the two boards slow things down in their breakneck effort to eliminate major differences between U.S. and international accounting rules. The two boards are moving swiftly to achieve a mid-2011 target date to adopt nearly a dozen new accounting standards that would lead to greater convergence of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards.

Meanwhile, FASB and IASB have put off plans to seek broad input on when and how it should consider introducing the major changes that are in store. FASB and IASB were scheduled to hammer out a discussion paper that would ask for advice on how to roll out the major standards that are developing, but the dialogue has been tabled. An IASB spokesman said it should be back on the agenda in June or July while an FASB spokesman says it will be early fall 2010.

Arnold Hanish, chairman of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting, said in his letter to the two boards the group is concerned about the “unprecedented volume as well as the complexity of proposed standards” that the two boards are developing. The committee fears the vast scope and aggressive timeline for the proposals will not allow adequate analysis of how the rules will work, which will lead to implementation problems and amendments further down the line.

Hanish calls on the boards to consider advancing no more than three to four proposals at a time to give more time for a thorough analysis. “We believe that showing reasonable, measured, and meaningful progress with clear regard for due process will demonstrate the commitment by the boards to convergence,” he wrote.

In his letter, Hanish says the member companies of the Committee on Corporate Reporting are “extremely concerned with the 10-plus exposure drafts” that are expected through the third quarter of 2010. “During any single period in time in its 38-year history, FASB has had no more than three or four significant EDs out for public comment,” he wrote.

The committee is further concerned that many of the proposals would call for changes that are interrelated, which would make the analysis even more important and at the same time more difficult. As an example, he says, the proposal to rewrite how financial statements are presented will dictate what information preparers must gather under other standards that are also changing. Similar overlap exists with proposals on revenue recognition and leases, and with liabilities and financial instruments.

Hanish says the committee doubts there are adequate technical resources available in industry to study and react to so many proposals at once, and they doubt FASB or IASB has the resources to fully study the feedback and possible consequences of all the proposals as well.