Review of Significant Accounting Topics

Description

Address areas of accounting that present challenges for financial statement preparers of nonpublic entities. Learn about the information necessary to understand these issues and explore practical, applicable approaches.

The topics examined include:

• The FASB has recently made changes to the accounting for financial instruments, with more changes anticipated. Changes to date relate to the accounting for investments in equity securities of other entities. Also, many nonpublic entities have entered into transactions involving derivatives and may not be applying the appropriate accounting for them. This course will discuss what financial instruments and derivatives are, recent changes to the accounting, and alternatives for accounting for derivatives, interest rate swaps in particular.
• The statement of cash flows continues to cause problems to many responsible for the preparation of financial statements, often taking an inordinate amount of time to prepare and bring into balance. This course will review some of the key provisions of that statement, including recent changes, and provide a spreadsheet approach for preparing it designed to reduce preparation time and assure that the statement will always balance.
• The new lease standard will be effective very soon and will change the way almost all entities will account for their leases. This course will provide an overview of the main provisions of the new standard and guide its adoption and the transition.
• Many nonpublic entities have not adopted the pronouncements of the Private Company Council (PCC), designed to provide less onerous approaches for dealing with some of the more complex accounting issues. This course will review the pronouncements of the PCC issued to date, the pros and cons of adopting them, and the methodology for doing so for those who decide to do so.
• The new revenue recognition standard is here and each of the five steps includes provisions that are potentially confusing and problematic. Although this course will not provide a detailed analysis of the new standard, it will provide an overview. Attention is given to provisions such as accounting for transactions that do not qualify as contracts, identifying when performance obligations are required to be combined, allocating multiple discounts in a single contract, accounting for payments to customers, and making sure the percentage-of-completion or comparable accounting method may be applied.
• For many entities, GAAP has become onerous, increasing the cost of financial reporting without necessarily improving the quality of the financial statements. Some entities may find it appropriate to consider adopting the AICPA’s Financial Reporting Framework for Small to Medium-Sized Entities (FRF for SMEs). This course will provide an overview of the key provisions of FRF for SMEs with suggestions as to how to adopt it for those entities that consider it appropriate.

Attendees have the option to further participate by requesting specific areas of accounting to be addressed in the course. The inclusion of suggestions are added when possible (the option unavailable to web re-broadcast attendees).

Highlights

• Financial instruments, derivatives, and interest rate swaps
• Statement of cash flows
• Accounting for leases
• Pronouncements of the Private Company Council (PCC)
• The Financial Reporting Framework for Small to Medium-Sized Entities (FRF for SME

Objectives

• Recognize areas of accounting that are particularly challenging to nonpublic entities, providing practical approaches for application.
• Identify GAAP alternatives for accounting for certain areas where they are available to nonpublic entities.
• Recognize non-GAAP alternatives that may be appropriate for nonpublic entities.

Designed For

CPAs, controllers, accounting and financial professionals.