News Articles

As with any accounting standard shift, the new lease standard (ASC 842) brings momentous changes to accounting processes and financial reporting. While the main differences are well-known, I’ve taken a particular interest in the smaller nuances that live within the new standard. (Yes, I’m an accounting nerd and I love learning about and discussing all things related to leases!) 

In this article, I’m sharing five of those intricacies that you may not know about the new lease standard, but that are critical to making the transition. 

FASB plans to propose delaying effective dates for four key standards for certain groups of financial statement preparers after a series of votes taken at a board meeting.

The plan to delay effective dates for certain companies for accounting for leases, credit losses, hedging, and long-duration insurance contracts is FASB’s response to the burden placed on preparers by the board’s ambitious standard-setting activities.

Coupled with the recent implementation of a highly challenging revenue recognition standard, FASB’s numerous new rules have created significant difficulties, especially for private companies whose financial reporting staffs have limited capacity.

Microsoft is planning to make Windows 10 PCs work without passwords. While the company has been working on removing passwords from Windows 10 and its Microsoft Accounts for a number of months now, the next major update to Windows 10 next year will go one step further. You’ll soon be able to enable a passwordless sign-in for Microsoft accounts on a Windows 10 device. This means PCs will use Windows Hello face authentication, fingerprints, or a PIN code. The password option will simply disappear from the login screen, if you decide to opt in to this new “make your device passwordless” feature.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations for allowing employers to truncate taxpayer identification numbers on wage and tax statements to help protect employees from identity theft. The regulations allow employers to voluntarily truncate employees’ Social Security Numbers on copies of the Form W2, Wage and Tax Statement, furnished to employees so the truncated SSNs appear in the form of IRS truncated taxpayer identification numbers. The regulations also clarify the application of the truncation rules to Forms W-2 and add an example illustrating the application of the rules.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board said it’s looking for public companies to take part in a study focusing on potential improvements to the segment disclosure requirements.

This is the second study conducted by FASB on segment reporting. This one will concentrate on the information disclosed by each reportable segment. The original study last year focused on improving the aggregation criteria and process for determining the reportable segments.

For this second study, FASB is looking for public companies that apply the disclosure requirements in FASB Accounting Standards Codification Topic 280, Segment Reporting. Participants will be asked to give information on the operability of various potential improvements to the segment disclosure requirements and to identify any potential unintended consequences.

The BKD Red Team stands ready to embarrass their clients — but all in the name of security. BKD Cyber, the cybersecurity arm of Springfield, Missouri-based Top 100 Firm BKD, has assembled what it’s calling its Red Team -- a digital attack simulation service that emulates the actions a hacker might take during a cyberattack. This service comes at a time when the accounting profession is on high alert for cybercrime, in the wake of several high-profile events.

BKD Cyber offers a number of cyber services including risk assessment, regulation compliance and incident response. The organization also offers penetration testing, where their professionals attempt to break into a business’ networks and assess their security strength; and “white hat” services, a colloquial term for “good hackers” that combat the activities of criminal hackers.

Auditors of private companies are reviewing clients’ efforts to prepare for filing financial statements under the new revenue recognition standard in early 2020.

In the five years since FASB adopted its landmark guidance in Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue From Contracts With Customers (Topic 606), companies large and small have had to race to implement the standard by its effective date.

Public companies began complying with the standard with their regulatory filings for the first quarter of 2018. Now the focus has shifted to private companies, which, in little more than half a year, are going to prepare their first set of annual financial statements with the new standard. Private company financial statements for interim reporting periods will have to comply with the standard in 2021.

If you haven't already upgraded to Windows 10, add the task to your to-do list
Over the next few weeks, millions of PC users will receive pop-up messages from Microsoft informing them that the Windows 7 operating system will reach the end of its life in January 2020.

After that, consumers will no longer receive updates of any kind, including critical security patches, for the nearly 10-year-old platform—potentially putting their computers at increased risk for viruses and other forms of malware.

“By starting the reminders now, our hope is that you have time to plan and prepare for this transition,” wrote Matt Barlow, corporate vice president, Windows, in a recent blog post. Microsoft recommends that consumers move to Windows 10, which it claims is the most secure version of the operating system ever developed.

The FBI received nearly 17% more complaints in 2018 than in 2017, and nearly double the losses.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime and Complaint Center received 50,000 more complaints in 2018 (351,936) than in 2017 (301,580), with losses from those complaints amounting to $2.7 billion, a $1.3 billion jump from the $1.4 billion in losses reported in 2017, according to the agency’s recently released crime report.

The report, released Monday, found that California, Texas and Florida rank among the highest states for both the number of victims and the value of losses.

The FASB amended its standards on credit losses, hedging, and recognizing and measuring financial instruments to clarify them and address implementation issues.

The amendments clarify the scope of the credit losses standard and address issues related to accrued interest receivable balances, recoveries, variable interest rates and prepayments, among other things.

With respect to hedge accounting, the amendments address partial-term fair value hedges, fair value hedge basis adjustments, application by not-for-profit entities and private companies, and certain transition requirements, among other things.

On recognizing and measuring financial instruments, they address the scope of the guidance, the requirement for re-measurement under ASC 820 when using the measurement alternative, certain disclosure requirements and which equity securities have to be remeasured at historical exchange rates.