IAASB Project Summary

With respect to ISA 315, the auditor shall identify and assess the risks of material misstatement shall be identified and assessed by the auditor due to fraud at the financial statement level, and at the assertion level for classes of transaction, account balances, and disclosures. When the auditors identify and assess the risks they should evaluate which types of revenue transactions give arise to such risks.

Note: General Note The Status Section identifies changes to this Subtopic resulting from Accounting Standards Updates. The Section provides references to the affected Codification content and links to the related Accounting Standards Updates. Nonsubstantive changes for items such as editorial, link and similar corrections are included separately in Maintenance Updates.

In 1973 the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was established to set the financial accounting standards in the United States of America for nongovernmental entities. These standards are collectively called U.S. Generally accepted Accounting Principles, or U.S. GAAP. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants acknowledge the authority of these standards (FASB, n.d). A “proven, independent due process” is used to collect the viewpoints of the financial statements prepares and users for the constant improvement of these standards. An Accounting Status Update(ASU) is not an authoritative source however documents the amendments to communicate the changes in the FASB Codification for a user to understand the reason and future of those changes (FASB, n.d).

I’m proud to be a Summit Charter Collegiate Academy, SCCA, bear. When I first enrolled at SCCA as a freshman, the school was nothing but a small, dull institution that focused on academics and nothing else. There were no sports teams, clubs, or school activities. The public viewed the school as a failure and assumed that it was no place for students to grow and experience what high school is like, but SCCA is nothing like the things people say it is. It may be different from the rest of the high schools in Porterville, California, but SCCA is very unique and is genuinely determined to prepare students for the real world. I aspired to do all that I could to make SCCA a better high school, so I joined my school's leadership team, also known as ASB, during my freshman year. Since the moment I joined ASB, I fell in love with the purpose of the organization. I loved to help out the school, and I loved planning events and activities that helped create a better high school experience for all of the students.

According to the Notice to Constituents (v4.7), the FASC superseded all previous level (a)-(d) US GAAP (refers to the previous accounting hierarchy) standards by a standard setter. This means that all other accounting literature not included in the Codification is non-authoritative.

‘There has been a worldwide demand from regulators, investors, businesses, and auditing firms for a single set of high-quality, globally-accepted accounting standards. The American Institute of CPA’s (AICPA) believes U.S. adoption of a single set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards will benefit U.S. financial markets and public companies by enabling preparation of transparent and comparable financial reports throughout the world” (aicpa.org).

The FASB process includes five steps to develop generally accepted accounting principles. The first step involves meeting and issuing a discussion memorandum. “A discussion memorandum is a document intended to encourage discussion and debate amongst accounting and financial professionals in regards to a current issue relating to the accounting industry” (“Discussion Memorandum”, n.d.). These are the ideas that will harm or benefit accountants. Next, they will obtain responses to this memorandum. After this is done FASB will create an exposure draft. Exposure drafts are basically an open blog about the new changes FASB is trying to implement. “The FASB issues a variety of different types of exposure documents to solicit input on its standards-setting

A joint convergence committee created the members of (FASB) and (IASB). (IASB) is recognized as an independent accounting standard-setting body that is similar to (FASB) that joins (GAAP), and is governed by the (IFRS) foundation. Due to this convergence, (AICPA) believes U.S. adoption of a single set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards will benefit U.S. financial markets and public companies by enabling preparation of transparent and comparable financial reports throughout the world, (American Institute of CPAs, 2016). Secondly, (AICPA) is dedicated to supplying the whole accounting profession with information, tools and IFRS.com for instance to assimilate as well as implement a new set of standards. As the (AICPA) supports continual convergence of reliable accounting standards between (IFRS) and (GAAP) the mission of completion between (IASB) and (FASB) is prolonged. (AICPA) will always support funding mechanisms of the body-making

Audit planning details change from client to client, no matter the complications presented. Each evolution of society’s business world prompts rule makers to update authoritative accounting standards in order to allow for changes, auditors are then responsible to certify their client’s financial reports adhere within compliance according to current authoritative standards. Many cite the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 as being legislation that has had the most profound impact on the auditing profession; incidentally, an auditor’s job is to certify financial statements are a fair representation of a company’s financial position, at a given point in time, using current acceptable standards. Society deems auditors as gatekeepers and expects the auditing profession to find and report fraud, prevent fraud, and make certain financial statements are true, fair representation of a company’s financial position. Even though the rules, regulations, and generally accepted accounting principles can sometimes be difficult to find and translate, the public expects auditors to prevent events such as those that sparked SOX. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) developed the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) that became the authoritative source July 2009 (FASB, 2009). Perhaps the hardest impact auditors experience with FASB ASC is attempting to ascertain clients’ FASB ASC references in disclosures on financial statements; “management cannot delegate this function to the

The Auditing Standards Board has launched the Clarity Project (Lindberg & Seifert, 2011) which is an effort to make the U.S. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (U.S. GAAS) easier to comprehend in the eyes of non-public businesses. “The Clarity Project will result in the first complete redrafting and recodification of U.S. GAAS since 1972” (Morris & Thomas, 2011, para. 2). Four of the most significant changes are: changing the format of the standards so they are more consistent and readable, the wording in the auditor’s report, group audit standards, and the authoritative status on the 10 generally accepted auditing standards (Morris & Thomas, 2011). The Clarity Project also includes the process of integrating the U.S. GAAS with International Standards on Auditing (ISA).

The joint standards board analyzed IAS 18, Revenue, and IAS 11, construction contracts. Trying to go through financial statements that do not use the same standard may be time consuming for auditors, so IASB and FASB deciding to combine those standards and redefine how to record revenue under a new joint standard may be the better option. In 2009 the IASB announced the decision to issue a joint standard with the FASB on revenue recognition. For the past five years, the IASB and the FASB periodically announced updates to the standard previously issued. The businesses and industries that use this revenue recognition standard should constantly watch for updates to existing standards, along with issuance of additional conjoint standards by the FASB and IASB. After thoroughly evaluating existing differences between GAAP and IFRS, recommendations for future joint standards will be discussed.

IAASB is a team of the International Federation of Accountants. It was created to increase uniformity of auditing practices and related services throughout the world by creating standards on auditing and reporting practices. Their role is to develop standards of consistency in accounting quality. They do not override a member nation's auditing standards however; members in countries that have standards in place should try to remove variations by likening their standards to those of the IAASB.

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). 2015. Statements on Auditing Standards. Accessed at AICPA web site (March 6, 2015): http://www.aicpa.org/research/standards/auditattest/pages/sas.aspx

On February 24, the SEC unanimously agreed to publish a statement of continued support for a single set of high-quality global accounting standards. The SEC acknowledged that IFRS is best positioned to be the global standard. Even without a set conversion timeline from the SEC, IFRS has been affecting

International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board International Federation of Accountants 545 Fifth Avenue, 14th Floor New York, New York 10017 USA This International Standard on Quality Control (ISQC) 1, “Quality Control for Firms that Perform Audits and Reviews of Financial Statements, and Other Assurance and Related Services Engagements” was prepared by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), an independent standard-setting body within the