Financial reporting

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board has issued provisional standards for seven industries in the financial services sector.

New accounting websites, blogs and more...

Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted at a meeting Wednesday to scale back FASB’s convergence efforts on insurance accounting standards with the International Accounting Standards Board.

The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy has written a letter to the Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, questioning the FAF’s recent decision to contribute up to $3 million to the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, the parent of the International Accounting Standards Board.

By any measure, BDO USA had a great 2013 in terms of Securities and Exchange Commission audit clients.

Anniversaries, M&A survey, new partnerships and more…

Financial executives should become more involved in their company’s sustainability reporting efforts, according to a new report.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has launched GASB Outlook, a quarterly electronic newsletter designed to keep stakeholders informed about key GASB projects and activities.

The New York State Society of CPAs is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to tighten its proposed regulations on crowdfunding, arguing the proposals would loosen the rules to the detriment of unwary investors.

The International Accounting Education Standards Board has released a paper on the development and management of written examinations for accountants.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has excluded credit unions from the definition of “public business entities,” exempting them from certain reporting provisions under GAAP and giving credit unions more latitude to determine what their reporting requirements should be.

During 2013, the scene was set for significant changes in financial reporting for private companies and evolved into a battle between standard-setting bodies. All the changes centered on the desire to simplify, and therefore reduce the cost of accounting for private companies. The question is, however, is simpler good enough?

PricewaterhouseCoopers has just joined the rest of the Big Four firms in officially sponsoring the work of the International Valuation Standards Council, which aims to create globally recognized and accepted valuation standards, particularly for financial instruments, and promote quality within the valuation profession.

The American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants have proposed a framework with the goal of bringing consistency to management accounting practice across the world.

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission has released a new paper examining how frameworks such as the ones it has issued for internal control and enterprise risk management can improve the performance and governance of an organization.

Check out the digital edition of the February 2014 issue of Accounting Today.

International Accounting Standards Board chairman Hans Hoogervorst said in a speech Wednesday the IASB is aware of concerns about the potential costs of the converged lease accounting standards that the IASB has been developing with the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board, and he assured the audience that those costs would be kept to a minimum.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said accounting errors at Autonomy Corp. have led it to cut the reported 2010 revenue at the software maker’s largest unit by 54 percent, adding fuel to a legal dispute over its purchase of Autonomy.

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson urged the Internal Revenue Service to adopt a comprehensive Taxpayer Bill of Rights in her annual report to Congress in mid-January.

With eight overall new Securities and Exchange Commission audit clients and a net gain of five, Top 20 Firm Marcum topped the charts among large and national firms in the fourth quarter, and brought in over a million dollars in audit fees.