Advantages And Disadvantages Of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

Pologeorgis (2012) stated that the diversity of accounting principle has an essential impact on the stock markets, corporate management, and financial reporting. He pointed that when people seeking for international capitals, varies of dissimilar accounting principles create discrepancies in their financial reporting. If people cannot understand the differences between IFRS and GAAP, they may have the chance to make the wrong decisions and loss money in the capital markets. Pologeorgis (2012) also mentioned that international investors have to relearn the new principal in order to be more familiar with the international standards. Based on above, there is a keen motivation for people to understand the differences and similarities of GAAP and IFRS. This research will show business people the main similarities and differences of GAAP and IFRS.

The purpose of this report is to look at the advantages and disadvantages that would occur if the United States were to switch their financial reporting standards from U.S GAAP

As the responsibilities of the global harmonization of accounting standards IFRS and GAAP transfer to IASB, FASB’s influence is waning. Advantages of the convergence include high quality financial reporting, which lowers cost of capital for investors and the cost of borrowing for companies. However, there are disadvantages to be noted, such as the costs of introducing IFRS to current and potential accountants and the risk of reducing the uniformity of financial reports due to the lax rulings of IFRS, which promotes earnings management amongst companies. Although arguments regarding the convergence remain prevalent, the completion of IFRS and GAAP is inevitable. Come year 2015, accountants, investors, and companies alike will discover whether or not the pros outweighed the cons; or vice versa.

States. Companies should report income, liability, equity, and assets. Many people (stockholders, investors, etc.) who have a stake in the company want to know this information before providing a service. In this paper, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) will be compared for

NOTE: As part of your two case research assignments, you need to search the online Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) for authoritative support for the positions you are taking in your solution. Your solution should contain specific references to the ASC standard numbers you are relying upon. The ASC can be located at http://aaahq.org/ascLogin.cfm and the userID and password are AAA51268 and LGU9z3k, respectively. They are case sensitive.

As accountants and auditors we are held to, and must comply with, two standards of professional conduct. Those standards are generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS). GAAP enforces the uniform standards for preparing and presenting financial statements. GAAS governs the ways and means are used by public accountants when conducting an audit. GAAS establishes the standards for field work and mandates that sufficient evidence be found to provide reasonable assurance for issuing an audit opinion.

In 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a road map for the United States (US) to implement International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) that would eventually lead to the dissolution of US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) (Cox 2008). US GAAP is rules based system of accounting that contains over 25,000 detailed pages of guidance, whereas IFRS is a principles based system of accounting that contains 2,500 pages of guidance. IFRS allows accountants to exercise professional judgment when making many decisions. This paper will compare and contrast US GAAP with IFRS on Intermediate Accounting Topics.

The consistency principle requires accountants to apply the same methods and procedures from period to period. When they change a method from one period to another they must explain the change clearly on the financial statements. The readers of financial statements have the right to assume that consistency has been applied if there is no statement to the contrary.

While generally accepted accounting principles include wide guidelines of general application, the standards also include comprehensive practices and procedures that offer the standard for evaluating financial presentations. As a result, these principles in financial recording and reporting tend to imply a substantial and significant authoritative support. Notably, GAAP standards are not a series of specific tailor-made guidelines that can be easily accessible in a single convenient range of rules. This is primarily because they originate from several sources and within a developed hierarchy. Generally, the standards range from the guidelines established by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, financial reporting literature from the AIPCA, and some financial

There are two sets of accounting standards that are used worldwide. One is the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). There is a huge desire for there to one set of accounting standards worldwide with the increase of companies performing business in many different countries and global expansion.

Due to the controversy economies have had towards which method to use for accounting, there has been a compromise to converge the two most commonly used methods – GAAP and IFRS. However, these two methods are still very different. The convergence project has yet to be completed; in the meantime, more and more countries are running towards the IFRS since it is more reliable and relevant. The main difference between these two methods is the US GAAP is rule-based while the IFRS is principle-based; this means that the US GAAP makes its decisions based on research and literature, while the IFRS bases its decisions on patterns that result in facts. A deeper look into the differences between these two methodologies shows

Historically, the major factors separating both standards were that IFRS is principles-based and US GAAP is rules-based. In a rules-based standard, there will be less ambiguity and the actions required are more defined whereas in a principle-based standard, there is a possibility of different interpretations being made for a similar type of transaction. (Forgas, 2008). Further, in a volatile economic environment, adopting a rules-based standard would be less risky for accountants and reduce potential litigation costs for the company in the event there is non-compliance or legal actions involved. (The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, ICAS, 2006) A rules-based standard prevents interpretation errors on the part of users from different

A Comparison and Contrast Analysis of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)

principles (GAAP), which apply to fi nancial accounting and are considered to be the “best”

GAAP is exceptionally useful because it attempts to regulate and normalize accounting definitions, assumptions, and methods. Because of generally accepted accounting principles one is able to presuppose that there is uniformity from year to year in the methods that are used to prepare a