Standard For Better Quality Accounting And Reporting

This research project will inform the reader of the difference between the United States accounting standards and International accounting standards. The United States uses the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to issue financial reporting procedures. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). There are proposals for the United States to adopt the International standards. Financial reporting procedures are debated about the United States using the Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures (GAAP) or following the global procedures. This

Over a decade ago, it was believed that the whole world would likely adopt the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). At the point in time, the International Financial reporting Standards (IFRS) was only about ten years old. In the last decade, the IFRS has been adopted in many growing countries. Currently, it is anticipated that the U.S. will converge its GAAP with the international IFRS, leaving behind only a modified IFRS. This may occur as early as 2014.

The FASB has the mission of create and improve the accounting standards and the financial reports by the nongovernmental organizations, offering useful information that allows investors and other users to make decisions. The implementation and improvement of the standards is made taking into consideration the opinion of all the parties interested and it is supervised by the Financial Accounting Foundation’s Board of Trustees. This process open to the public participation warranty the transparency into the standards-setting process. Therefore, the FASB issue a variety of reports requesting feedbacks on its standards setting activities. (FASB, Standard-setting process, n.d.)

On November 18, 2002 the FASB and IASB came together at a meeting in Norwalk, Connecticut to start the wheels in motion for the purpose of establishing a new set of financial standards. The FASB and IASB are committed to create financial standards that will be accepted both domestically and internationally that are of high quality and compatible for financial reporting. At present more than a 100 countries already use the International Financial Reporting Standards. The U.S. at present has not accepted a changed in accounting procedures; therefore, this is going to be a major task for both the FASB and IASB to complete successfully this union. I do believe that the partnership between the FASB and IASB will achieve the goals of creating a common financial reporting set of standards that will be accepted by all.

A variety of parties are interested in and affected by the development of accounting standards. Various users of accounting information have discovered that the best way to impact the formulation of accounting standards is to attempt to influence the standard setters. The CAP, APB, and FASB have all come

The IASB and the FASB have both established frameworks for the reporting of financial information, however, despite their apparent similarities several key differences exist between their structures. For example, U.S. GAAP has been traditionally defined as being a more rules-based standard, which has established strict guidelines and contingencies for reporting financial information. Given its history and the recent tumultuous financial environment, particularly the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. GAAP has become a very robust and strictly enforced set of standards. This has given rise to concerns that some preparers of financial statements may commit accounting fraud by circumventing or manipulating the rules of U.S. GAAP. Supporters of IFRS argue that “the more detailed the guidance, the greater the opportunity to find the loopholes in the guidance” (Hillman, Heaston, and Dodd 5). Despite these concerns, however, U.S. GAAP continues to be the preferred standard of most accounting professionals. Conversely, IFRS is a principles-based standard. The principles-based approach of IFRS grants management the discretion to use different accounting methods when preparing financial data. While this practice is praised for its focus on fair values and the freedoms it provides managers, it is often criticized for being far too subjective and inviting “a human element that could increase the risk of financial

Enron was America’s seventh largest corporation. Enron rose to dramatic heights only to face a tremendous collapse. Enron was ‘America’s most innovative Company’ and it shocked the world by the biggest bankruptcy of that time. Enron was formed in 1985 following a merger between Houston Natural Gas Company and InterNorth Inc. of Omaha (Investopedia, 2016). Enron’s collapse affected lives of thousands of employees. When Enron was at lifetime high, it’s share prices were at $ 90.75, but that fell to a low of $ 0.67 in January 2002 following its bankruptcy (BBC News, 2002). It is really a wonder how such a powerful and innovative business disintegrated overnight and managed to dupe the regulators with the help of fake books of records and off the books transactions for such a long period of time. Enron presented the picture that it was a great Company with remarkable revenue however that was actually not the case, a huge part of Enron’s profit was fabricated. This was facilitated by masterfully designed accounting and morally questionable acts. Concealing losses contributed to a huge problem and by late 2001, the company was declared insolvent. There were countless factors which affected Enron’s journey to the top and its abrupt fall. In this case study, we will analyze the related party transactions that the company entered into which were questionable, evaluate the accounting firm’s logic and the errors and proposed rules to avoid any such fraud in future.

December 31, 2001 will forever be etched in history as the day that one of the biggest white collar scandals came to an end. Electric and natural gas giant Enron was found to have been defrauding its investors out of billions of dollars in order to increase its stock prices, and fatten the pockets of high executives particularly Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay, President and COO Jeffrey Skilling, and CFO Andrew Fastow. Thousands of employees were laid-off and lost their 401(k); those already retired lost funding from their pension.1 In this paper I will demonstrate that the Enron corporation was operating on a foundation of fraud, corruption, greed, and immorality; I will also reflect on the legal and financial consequences surrounding the scandal.

The Enron case is well known for being the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history. Thousands of people world-wide lost billions of dollars, lost life savings, and lost their jobs. Due to the vast corruption, greed and the blatant disregard for integrity from the very top of Enron leadership, world markets crumbled and investor confidence in corporate America was severely damaged (Chandra, 2003.)

For those in the business world, particularly in the accounting field, a major issue has surfaced in recent years relating to the differences between Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Currently, the majority of countries in the world follow International Financial Reporting Standards guidelines; however, the United States still uses GAAP. This topic has been a main focus because there is a plan for convergence between the two frameworks in the near future. The United States accounting system will undergo drastic changes when this occurs, but

Conceptual framework is a theory of accounting prepared by a standard setting body against which practical problems can be tested objectively. In addition the business dictionary states that conceptual framework is a theoretical structure of assumptions, principles and rules that hold together the ideas compromising a broad concept. Other sources state that a conceptual framework can be viewed as a set of interrelated objectives and theoretical principles, which forms a reference for the underlying discipline. On the other hand, financial reporting is the process of producing statements that disclose an organization's financial status to management, investors and the government. Therefore, in financial reporting the framework provides information

Financial accounting has become more complex as our country grows. The United States has established a core financial body to ensure all financial statements are published within the prescribed guidelines so that any creditor or investor is able to read and understand the information. The FASB was created to ensure that these guidelines are followed and they are well-paid individuals so there is little chance of them keeping ties with their private firms which creates a trust with the public. The FASB crated a conceptual framework that all companies must adhere to. This ensures that investors, creditors and the public receive an honest

AASB 8 is an important Accounting Standard from the financial information reporting perspective. It ensures that the entity has to disclose enough information to the user of financial information about the economic activities the entity is involved into and the scope or spread of these activities. The standard requires the entity to provide information about the reportable operating segments of the entity. Operating segments are the components of the entity of which separate financial information is available and it is regularly evaluated by the management – more specifically – the CODM – i.e. the Chief Operating Decision Maker to assess the performance of the particular component and to allocate resources in appropriate

A: Conceptual framework can be defined as “an attempt to define the nature and purpose of accounting” (Team, 2015).

The development of accounting standards and rules is based upon conceptual framework which is part of system of financial reporting. These standards set the nature, function and limits of financial account and financial statement. In line with the suggestion of Reichel and Ramey (1987), conceptual framework is described as a set of broad ideas and principles taken from relevant fields of enquiry and used to structure a subsequent presentation. This reflects the items such as equity, expenses, income, assets and liabilities in financial statement. The International Accounting Standards Committee (IASB) is the body that developed the international conceptual framework in 1989 with the hope to attain global acceptance .The objective is to improve financial reporting which indicate the preparation of financial statement for limited company by providing updated, clear and complete set of concepts. In order to evaluate the role of conceptual framework, this essay aims to provide a discussion of the usefulness and limitations of conceptual framework in relation of International accounting standards. As mentioned above, the usefulness of conceptual framework includes consistency, comparability and credibility. Meanwhile, the limitations involve the difficulty to set up, difficulty to create the new ideas and may only benefit to certain groups.