Accounting standards

Even before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government was facing dire financial conditions, with its overall financial condition worsening by $8.16 trillion in 2019, according to a new analysis.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is working on several fronts to offer relief to state and local governments and other stakeholders in the midst of the pandemic, including delaying the effective date of some standards.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board published guidance to help state and local governments transition move to newer reference rates that are less prone to market manipulation.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board will be meeting next week to discuss the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on its stakeholders, including pushing back the effective dates of some of its upcoming accounting standards.

KPMG and one of its senior partners have been reprimanded and fined 455,000 pounds ($560,000) for failings in its audit of a U.K. company, the latest sanction against the Big Four auditor in recent years.

A better audit isn’t measured by the number of forms completed.

The two accounting associations have signed a letter of intent to merge, effective Sept. 1, 2020.

Three firms share very different approaches to handling clients’ books.

The $2.2 trillion package passed by the Senate includes a provision that would allow banks the temporary option to postpone compliance with the credit losses standard.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is considering delaying the effective dates of its standards and implementation guides because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Existing general auditing standards can and should be complied with, despite difficulties.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has come under pressure to relax its credit losses standard as banks and other financial institutions see the value of their assets plunging from the sell-off in the capital markets amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials and employees are working from home and doing inspections of U.S. audit firms remotely to protect them from infection.

The American Institute of CPAs’s Financial Reporting Committee released working drafts of two pieces of implementation guidance for the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s long-duration insurance contracts standard.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) accounting standard in 2016. Since then, many questions have been raised about what it requires, particularly by financial services companies.

The board's ASU offers temporary optional guidance to help with the accounting for reference rate reform.

The American Institute of CPAs updated its auditor reporting standards to conform them with recently issued auditing standards.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board made some narrow improvements to different aspects of the financial instruments guidance, including the current expected credit losses standard.

The proposal involves how to define the criteria for the component units in pension plans and deferred compensation plans for state and local government employees.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is giving “conditional” regulatory relief from certain filing obligations for public companies due to the outbreak.