GASB offers implementation guide for pronouncements

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board released implementation guidance Monday to clarify, explain and elaborate on its GASB statements, using a series of questions and answers.

The updated guide includes new questions and answers discussing the application of GASB standards on leases, subscription-based information technology arrangements, and accounting changes. The guide also includes amendments to previously issued implementation guidance on leases.

GASB regularly comes out with new and updated guidance to help state and local governments in applying U.S. GAAP to specific facts and circumstances that they encounter.

Courtesy of GASB

The board develops the guidance based on application issues raised during due process on GASB pronouncements, in addition to application issues identified during the first stage of the GASB's post-implementation reviews of the leases standards, questions it receives throughout the year, and topics identified by members of the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council and other stakeholders.

The guidance is cleared by the board and constitutes Category B GAAP. It's available to download free of charge on the GASB website here.

GASB chair Joel Black recently discussed the updated implementation guide during an interview last month at the Accounting Today offices. "We have a technical inquiry system to help people," said Black. "As we get common themes among questions coming in, and we figure out maybe we could publish this kind of question with a certain kind of fact pattern and answer it for everybody, that's what we're trying to do. They're in Q&A format to allow people to more easily understand and implement the standards, given different kinds of situations."