Financial reporting

The Financial Accounting Foundation has named Candace Wright as the next chair of the Private Company Council.

Willingness to manipulate earnings helps individuals succeed in corporate accounting, according to a new academic study.

Noble Group, the commodity trader battling criticism of its accounting, stepped up its public defense by publishing an auditor’s report in support of its practices.

Nonprofit organizations make accounting errors at a relatively high rate, in part because they try to avoid devoting a high percentage of their funding to administrative costs, according to a new study.

Global standards advocates need to understand the problems

The International Federation of Accountants has released a new briefing paper on how accountants can help their organizations address sustainability issues and incorporate them into business decisions.

One of the more intriguing questions stemming from the Toshiba Corp. accounting scandal is this: Where was the whistleblower?

Board members at nonprofit organizations are too far removed from some of their key governance responsibilities, according to a new survey by the accounting firm Marks Paneth.

The ride-sharing app Uber is showing up more than taxis on employee expense reports, according to a new analysis.

XBRL US has begun a public exposure period for rules developed by its Data Quality Committee, which aims to improve the quality of financial filings using the interactive Extensible Business Reporting Language format mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

New research indicates that many investors tend to overlook the vague misgivings that auditors might express in letters included with their audit reports, even though those warnings often turn out to be a predictor of future trouble with a company’s financial statements.

Moving past simplification to ‘qualitification’

Preparing for the new revenue recognition standards

The European Commission has issued a report evaluating the use of International Financial Reporting Standards over the past decade in the European Union.

Asia’s largest commodity trader Noble Group Ltd. took on its critics with an open letter defending its accounting methods and valuations of a coal asset.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has upgraded its EDGAR online system for financial filings and will no longer support an older version of the U.S. GAAP financial reporting taxonomy.

Investors and regulators are hoping to see the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board somehow reconcile their differing approaches to accounting for loan impairments and credit losses in their financial instruments project.

The institute has recommended to the IRS that taxpayers making an accounting method change for mischaracterized research and experimental expenditures under Sec. 174 should compute a Sec. 481 (a) adjustment.

James Schnurr, chief accountant in charge of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant, said he disagrees with a former SEC chairman about abandoning convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards.

U.S. state and local governments will have to report billions of dollars in health-care liabilities on their balance sheets under an accounting change aimed at improving disclosure of retiree benefits.