Quarterly Accounting Roundup

Dominating the accounting and financial reporting headlines in 2020 was the pandemic caused by COVID-19, which has significantly affected the U.S. and global economies and financial markets and created unprecedented challenges for many organizations. In other accounting and financial reporting news, the FASB released a number of Accounting Standards Updates during 2020, including those that:

• Address issues related to reference rate reform.
• Simplify the accounting for certain financial instruments with characteristics of liabilities and equity, including convertible instruments and contracts on an entity’s own equity.
• Clarify the interactions between the accounting for investments in equity securities, equity method investments, and certain equity securities.
• Defer the effective dates of the Board’s revenue and leasing standards for certain entities.
• Delay the effective date of the guidance on long-duration insurance contracts.
• Require not-for-profit entities to (1) “present contributed nonfinancial assets as a separate line item in the statement of activities, apart from contributions of cash or other financial assets,” and (2) disclose contributed nonfinancial assets.
• Make certain Codification improvements.

In addition, the SEC issued various final rules this year, including those that (1) modernize certain financial disclosure requirements in Regulation S-K, (2) amend the shareholder proposal rule, (3) update the disclosure requirements for banking registrants, (4) improve financial disclosure requirements related to acquisitions and dispositions of businesses, (5) expand qualifications for nonaccelerated filer status, and (6) simplify the disclosure requirements related to guarantors and collateralizations of securities.

(Source:  Deloitte – Year in Review 2020 – December 15, 2020)