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Accounting Research Manager®

Weekly Summary of Developments

ARM Weekly Summary June 11-15, 2012

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Accounting Research Manager subscriber,

The Accounting Research Manager database now contains this week's weekly summary of developments. Click the link below to access and print the fully-formatted Weekly Summary:

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

If you do not have immediate Internet access to the Accounting Research Manager database, below is the text of this week's Weekly Summary.

Accounting and SEC Headlines

Disclosure Checklist -- IFRS Financial Disclosures Checklist Updated

Derivatives and Hedging -- Interpretation Updated

EITF Materials -- FASB Issues Additional Materials for June 21, 2012 EITF Meeting

Leases -- FASB and IASB Agree on Lease Accounting Approach and Discuss Other Matters

Auditing and Internal Controls Headlines

Comfort Letters -- AICPA Clarified Auditing Standard Discussed

Employee Benefit Plans -- New Edition of Knowledge-Based Audits Published

Government Headlines

GASB Technical Plan -- GASB Technical Plan Discussed

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ACCOUNTING AND SEC HEADLINES:

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Disclosure Checklist -- IFRS Financial Disclosures Checklist Updated

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

We have updated the AutoCheck IFRS Financial Disclosures Checklist for the disclosure and presentation requirements issued through February 2012. This checklist is an automated checklist for the annual disclosure requirements for International Financial Reporting Standards (as issued by the IASB). The checklist uses tailoring questions to eliminate disclosure requirements that do not pertain to your company saving time and effort. Both the tailoring questions and answers can be carried forward from period-to-period. Once the checklist is completed, it can be printed and placed in work papers to provide support for review and compliance procedures.

Existing users of the AutoCheck checklist must update the software supporting the checklist as explained at the bottom of our Literature Update.

Derivatives and Hedging -- Interpretation Updated

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

We have updated our publication, Derivatives and Hedging - Interpretations of U.S. GAAP, to reflect amendments of the FASB Accounting Standards CodificationTM through FASB Editorial and Maintenance Update 2012-04. We have also updated the section, “Recent Developments,” to reflect activities at the FASB that relate to Topic 815 and added the following new interpretations:

-Interpretation 815-10-15-2.I, “Unconditional Purchase Obligation That Is a Derivative Instrument,” which notes that an unconditional purchase obligation that meets the definition of a derivative instrument is subject to requirements of both Subtopic 815-10 and Topic 440, Commitments, Subtopic 440-10, including paragraph 440-10-50-4. We added a cross-reference to this new interpretation in Interpretation 815-10-55-60.A, “Take-or-Pay Contracts as Derivative Instruments.”

-Interpretation 815-45-35-1.A, “Non-Exchange-Traded Weather Derivative Cannot Qualify as a Hedging Instrument,” which explains that a weather derivative that is not traded on an exchange cannot be designated as a hedging instrument.

See our Literature Update for complete details.

EITF Materials -- FASB Issues Additional Materials for June 21, 2012 EITF Meeting

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

The FASB has issued the following additional materials for the June 21, 2012 EITF meeting:

-EITF Issue No. 11-A, "Parent's Accounting for the Cumulative Translation Adjustment upon the Sale or Transfer of a Group of Assets That Is a Nonprofit Activity or a Business within a Consolidated Foreign Entity" (issue supplement);

-EITF Issue No. 12-B, "Not-for-Profit Entities: Services Received from Employees of an Affiliated Entity" (issue supplement); and

-EITF Issue No. 12-D, "Accounting for Joint and Several Liability for which the Total Amount of the Obligation at the Reporting Date Is Fixed" (issue supplement).

Leases -- FASB and IASB Agree on Lease Accounting Approach and Discuss Other Matters

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

As reported in its "Summary of Board Decisions" publication, the FASB and IASB (the Boards) met on June 12-13, 2012, and discussed the following topics:

-Leases;

-Financial instruments-classification and measurement;

-Insurance contracts; and

-Investment companies.

The Boards have agreed on an approach for lease expense accounting as part of their joint project on lease accounting. The Boards’ decisions on lease accounting to this point are still preliminary. The Boards decided on an approach in which some lease contracts would be accounted for using an approach similar to that proposed in the 2010 Leases Exposure Draft, while other lease contracts would be accounted for using an approach that results in a straight-line lease expense.

The Boards made these revisions to address the widespread concern that many lease obligations are not recorded on the balance sheet, and that the current accounting for lease transactions does not represent the economics of all lease transactions. The Boards previously agreed that all leases should be recorded on the balance sheet, but have continued to discuss the classification and pattern of expenses in the income statement. The Boards plan to release a joint exposure draft of the revisions in the fourth quarter of this year.

Regarding their project on financial instruments, the Boards discussed the scope of the fair value through other comprehensive income (FVOCI) measurement category for debt instruments and reaffirmed that a debt instrument will be measured at FVOCI only if:

-The debt instrument passes the contractual cash flow characteristics assessment (as discussed by the Boards at the February 2012 joint Board meeting); and

-The debt instrument is managed within the relevant business model (as discussed by the Boards at the May 2012 joint Board meeting).

Some of the documents listed above may not be accessible under your current subscription. For information about upgrading your subscription to include additional content, click here:

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

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AUDITING AND INTERNAL CONTROLS HEADLINES:

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Comfort Letters -- AICPA Clarified Auditing Standard Discussed

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

We have added a GAAS Update Service that provides discussion and analysis of a clarified AICPA Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS), Letters for Underwriters and Certain Other Requesting Parties, which was finalized as part of the AICPA's Clarity Project and subsequently designated as AU-C Section 920, Letters for Underwriters and Certain Other Requesting Parties, by SAS 122, Statements on Auditing Standards: Clarification and Recodification. AU-C Section 920 supersedes SAS 72 (AU Section 634), Letters for Underwriters and Certain Other Requesting Parties, and will be effective for comfort letters issued on or after December 15, 2012.

Employee Benefit Plans -- New Edition of Knowledge-Based Audits Published

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

We have published the 2012 edition of Knowledge-Based Audits of Employee Benefit Plans. This guide is designed to help the auditor efficiently and effectively perform financial statement audits of employee benefit plans in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America. This edition of the guide includes revisions and updates to reflect current authoritative literature and, among other things, auditing pronouncements through SAS No. 121, Revised Applicability of Statement on Auditing Standards No. 100 - Interim Financial Information.

See our Literature Update for complete details.

Some of the documents listed above may not be accessible under your current subscription. For information about upgrading your subscription to include additional content, click here:

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

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GOVERNMENT HEADLINES:

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GASB Technical Plan -- GASB Technical Plan Discussed

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us

We have added a Governmental GAAP Update Service that discusses the GASB's recently released technical plan for the second four months of 2012. Included within the technical plan is a new, noteworthy project edition. The new project will reexamine the GAAP Hierarchy currently detailed in GASB Statement No. 55, The Hierarchy of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for State and Local Governments, which was slightly amended by paragraph 4 of GASB Statement No. 62, Codification of Accounting and Financial Reporting Guidance Contained in Pre-November 30, 1989 FASB and AICPA Pronouncements.

Some of the documents listed above may not be accessible under your current subscription. For information about upgrading your subscription to include additional content, click here:

For detail, please contact info@hkcmcpa.us