National Council on Government Accounting Statement No. 44 and Its Impact on Reporting

“Access to good financial information is essential to success in the policy and financial management arenas” (Bartle, Hildreth, Marlowe. P. 222). Proper accounting is the cornerstone to working towards a balanced budget. The CAFR (comprehensive annual financial report)

This research paper will detail the modified accrual revenue recognition in State and Local Government (SLG) accounting. There will also be discussions on the guidance of governmental fund expenditure recognition, and how it is used in state and local governments. Certainly, there are differences between the fund and the government-wide financial statements, but there are some similarities. Within the paper, it will include the purpose as well as the content of the financial statements. While explaining the government-wide financial statements, the preparation using derived information in the conversion worksheets, will be presented. Lastly, in this research paper, I will explain the elements of a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).

SFAC No. 8 addresses the cost constraint on useful financial reporting, “Cost is a pervasive constraint that standard setters, as well as providers and users of financial information, should keep in mind when considering the benefits of a financial reporting requirement.” (SFAC No. 8 BC 3.47) However, the ability to place a dollar value and fully enumerate a cost or benefit is almost an impossible task for standard-setters. Additionally, there is no way to successfully identify and measure all of the economic consequences associated with a new standard. The FASB should be applauded though for advancing uniformity in accounting standards, however; uniform financial reporting suggests a one size fits all approach. “Smaller, non-publicly listed firms (and their auditors) argue that accounting standards are formulated mainly for larger, publicly traded firms” and that “compliance costs are disproportionately higher and the

The purpose of this paper is to define accounting, and identify the four basic financial statements. The paper also explains how the different financial statements are interrelated to each other and why they are useful to managers, investors, creditors, and employees.

The Office of Financial Management provides vital information, fiscal services and policy support that the Governor, Legislature and state agencies need to serve the people of Washington State (Investopedia, 2010). Included in this briefing, a comparison of the governmental and for-profit financial accounting will be discussed, an understanding of the government reporting and reporting entity, and an overview of the Management Discussion & Analysis report for the state of Washington.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate (Louwers & Reynolds, 2007). We believe that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

financial statements” (Waxman, 2013, p. xiii). It is the purpose of this paper to discuss some of

As the business environment grows and companies find new ways to expand into their respective - or even new – markets, it is important that reporting standards stay up to date with changes and continue to assist companies in providing their users with useful accounting information. Information is labelled as being useful when it meets the

The GASB Statement No. 56 was initiated on April 16, 2009. The essence of the new ruling aims to integrate the accounting and financial guidelines of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) with the GASB’s accounting procedures that concern the state and local government (“New Release,” 2009; “Statement No. 56,” 2009; “Summary of Statement No. 56,” n.d). The statement does not create new financial reporting guidelines or requirements nor imply amendments to the current policies. Rather, it “relocates the existing” guidelines from the “professional auditing standards (“Statement No. 56,” 2009, p. 11). There are three major areas that are taken into consideration, namely “related party transactions, “going concern” attributes

The documents that comprise GAAP vary in format, completeness, and structure. As a result, financial statement preparers sometimes are not sure whether they have the right GAAP; determining what is authoritative and what is not becomes difficult. In response to these concerns, the FASB developed the Financial Accounting Standards Board Accounting Standards Codification. The FASB’s primary goal in developing the Codification is to provide in one place all the authoritative literature related to a particular topic. Professional accountants pay for access to the FASB. The OU Accounting Department has paid for academic access to the FASB Codification. Our Login information is:

The article that I have decided to summarize is “GASB Statement Provides Guidance on Partnerships between Governments and Public or Private Entities”. GASB stands for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. The GASB is the source of generally accepted accounting principles used by state and local governments in the United States. GASB has issued different statements to provide guidance on reporting financial statement. The government has numerous partnerships where they can enter to accelerate cash flows associated with the use of specific capital assets.

This paper will analyze these views as they apply to the discloser of segment information for public entities as required by topic 280 of the FASB accounting standards codification, and discussed in Statement of Financial Standards No. 131 (“SFAS 131). The paper is structured as follows: Section II provides an overview of the objective and general purpose of financial reporting and the qualitative characteristics off useful financial information as determined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), section III introduces the concept of segment reporting and outlines the requirements for disclosures of segment information for public companies, section IV evaluates the relevance of

In this report I will be describing how legislation and accounting concepts, could affect a business company’s accounting policies. I will also be talking what Acts contain, concepts and their importance, and also accounting policies. I will be supporting my work with examples.

Regulation is defined as a set of rules that is designed to control and govern conduct by authority (Deegan 2009, p.59). On the basis of this definition, Deegan (2009, p.59) has defined regulations relating to financial accounting as rules that are developed by independent authoritative body to govern the preparation of financial statements which are accounting standards. Since decades ago, there have been arguments for and against the existence of accounting regulations. With a stance of pro-regulation, this essay is going to examine the reasons that financial accounting and reporting should be regulated and the merits of accounting regulations.

The important reasons which necessitate harmonization of accounting practices are well contained in the observation made by Saudagaran. “While the initial efforts at harmonization were mainly championed by political bodies and professional accounting organizations, current pressures to harmonize are driven by investor groups who use financial statements, multinational companies which prepare financial statements, regulators who monitor capital markets, the securities industry (including stock exchanges) which view itself as being significantly impacted by the global diversity in financial reporting requirement, and developing