All articles by Tammy Whitehouse – Page 52
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Blog
XBRL Repeal for Small Companies Fails
This week the House of Representatives looked for a two-thirds majority vote to push through a proposal to exempt companies with revenues below $250 million from the XBRL filing requirement. The measure fell short, gaining just 276 votes out of the needed 281. More inside.
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Blog
Final 2013 Going-Concern Filings Expected to Decline
Audit firms’ going-concern warnings dropped again in 2013, for the sixth year in a row, according to a recent study from Audit Analytics. A review of opinions on 2013 financial results (issued throughout the course of 2014) indicates a drop of 5.9 percent from warnings for 2012. More study details ...
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Article
Recognize the Big Standards’ Changes
The auditing and financial reporting world will spend lots of 2015 preparing for the new revenue recognition standard going into effect by 2017—but from leasing to going concern warnings to IFRS adoption in the United States, plenty of other major changes may arrive as well. “Folks have come to see ...
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Blog
SEC Staffers Try to Untangle Business Unit Accounting Issues
Image: Title: RogersAt a recent national accounting conference on regulatory issues, staff members at the Securities and Exchange Commission, including professional accounting fellow Chris Rogers (left), offered lots of advice on how companies can better explain to investors the intricacies of joint ventures, spinoffs, pushdown accounting, and segment reporting in ...
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SEC Relaxes View on Goodwill Impairment Test Date
Staff members at the SEC are easing up their expectation on preferability letters when companies decide to change the date of their annual goodwill impairment testing. Acknowledging the judgment that goes into making such a determination, staff members will no longer request a preferability letter to be obtained and filed, ...
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Blog
Debt Modification May Lead to Hedge Accounting Questions
Dec. 29—A friendly reminder from the SEC and auditing experts: If your company plans to issue or modify debt now, before the Fed raises interest rates sometime in 2015, check your debt agreements carefully to see whether you have any embedded derivatives language in there—since that could trigger new disclosures ...
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Blog
SEC: Don’t Ignore Mortality Tables at Year-End
If your company is planning to set aside new mortality tables in arriving at assumptions about pension and other post-employment benefit obligations because they are simply too new, that might be a mistake. The SEC recently sent a clear signal to the accounting profession that companies need to consider new ...
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SEC Nudges Companies on Cash Flows
The SEC is urging companies to tighten accounting procedures around the statement of cash flows, amid a steady rise in restatements associated with it. Speaking at the national AICPA conference earlier this month, SEC staffer Kirk Crews said the majority of errors were “due to relatively less complex applications” of ...
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Blog
FASB Releases XBRL Taxonomy for 2015
For companies looking to get a head start on their XBRL filings, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has released its 2015 GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy, pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Blog
PCAOB Disciplines Grant Thornton Auditor in Japan
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has disciplined a Grant Thornton auditor in Japan for failing to address numerous red flags that revenue could be overstated in the 2010 audit of Baldwin-Japan Ltd.
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Blog
SEC Cautions Companies on Consolidation Analyses
Image: The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking closely at who consolidates a variable interest entity, noticing variations in how companies apply existing guidance. Professional Accounting Fellow Christopher Rogers said at a recent conference that staff is looking into issues surrounding the application of shared power, determining when a decision ...
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Article
More Hints on Putting New COSO to Work
It’s official: The SEC will not roast companies over an open flame if they continue to use the old COSO framework for internal controls into 2015. That said, SEC staffers also warned at the annual AICPA conference last week that their largesse will not last long, and a bevy of ...
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Article
SEC Gives More Ideas on Less Disclosure
Image: A small army of SEC officials attended the annual AICPA conference last week, offering all manner of advice to financial reporting executives struggling to comply with external reporting rules. One subject: how to achieve better disclosure with fewer words. “We are aware there are some registrants that seem to ...
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Blog
PCAOB’s Chief Inspector Provides Checklist for Year-End Audits
Dec. 16—The audit profession’s chief inspector has provided auditors with a year-end checklist, giving companies some fair warning about what they can expect auditors to be focused on in their upcoming audit cycles. The most common deficiencies found in 2014 inspections still relate to audits of internal control, said Helen ...
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Blog
Audits Failures Linked to Execution, Not Process Problems
Image: Dec. 10—Audits fail not so often because the audit firm’s process was flawed, but because individual auditors or engagement teams fail to adhere to firm methodologies, according to Jay Hanson, a member of the PCAOB. At a national accounting conference on regulatory issues, Hanson said he sees much more ...
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Blog
FASB Studies Three Revenue Issues for Possible New Guidance
Image: Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Russ Golden has authorized FASB staff to conduct research on (1) how to apply the new revenue recognition standard to licensing agreements; (2) when revenue should be recognized on a gross versus net basis; and (3) how to determine performance obligations. The research should ...
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Article
Frameworks and Leadership on Cyber-Risks
As cyber-security attacks become everyday news, companies are racing to identify and mitigate their risks. Some of that is “pure” IT security; much of it is about applying a control framework smartly to new technologies—and empowering the right person to oversee these risks. “Companies ... for the most part are ...
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SEC, PCAOB Deliver Fresh Warnings on Auditor Independence
Dec. 9—Public companies have been handed a not-so-subtle reminder to pay closer attention to auditor independence. At the annual AICPA conference this week, the SEC announced it had sanctioned eight audit firms with fines totaling $140,000 for violating auditor independence rules because they prepared financial statements of brokerage firms whose ...
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Blog
PCAOB Finds No Big Improvement in 2014 Inspections
Image: The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will soon offer a peek at 2014 inspection findings, but you won’t see much improvement, said Chairman James Doty. The board has delivered consistently tough marks to the major audit firms in recent years, calling for better audit work on such items as ...
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SEC Explores Possible Option to Report Under IFRS
Image: The Securities and Exchange Commission is exploring whether to provide U.S. companies with the option to present their financial statements under International Financial Reporting Standards, SEC Chief Accountant James Schnurr said last week. Schnurr is studying the staff’s historical work on a possible adoption of IFRS, and reaching out ...