The Current Requirements of US GAAP Segment Reporting In order to help users of financial statements better understand the public entity 's operations and make more informed decisions about the public entity 's operating matters, publicly-held companies are required to disclose the segments and related information about the different types of activities in which the company engages and the different economic environments in which the company operates. According to FASB Accounting Standards Codification, public entity is a business entity or a not-for-profit entity that issues securities in public market or is required to files financial statements with SEC. FASB provides guidance regarding the disclosure in the notes to financial …show more content…
However, components with intercompany revenues would be operating segments. These departments with revenues and expenses would be operating segments even if they don 't have assets. The second requirement is that the operating results are regularly reviewed by the public entity 's chief operating decision makers (ASC 280-10-50-1). ASC defines the term "chief operating decision maker" (CODM), who allocates resources to and assess the operating results of the segment of an entity. CODM could be chief executive officer or a group of top executives. The third requirement is that its discrete financial information is available (ASC 280-10-50-1). To make resource allocation decision and assess performance, the CODM must have the detailed financial information about the component. When an equity method investee has met these three requirements, it could be an operating segment, even the investor doesn 't control over the investee. Besides equity method investees, corporate divisions which meet the three requirements could be considered as operating segments (ASC 280-10-55-3). When determining operating segments, discontinued operations should be also considered. Since discontinued operation is a component of an entity as defined under ASC 205 205-20-45-1, it may be an operating segment. After determining operating segments, FASB requires to determine reportable segments among them. To be considered as
Publicly traded companies are subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The laws that govern the securities industry were established to provide transparency to investors, creditors and shareholders alike. According to Hoyle, Schaefer & Doupnik, (2015) there are seven major disclosure requirements, the first being a five-year summary of operations to encompass sales, assets, income from continuing operations. Followed by a description of business activities, a three year summary of industry segments to include foreign and domestic operations, a list of company directors and executives, quarterly market price of common stock for the last two years, restrictions on the company’s ability to continue paying dividends, and finally, an analysis of the company’s financial condition, changes in the conditions and results of operation.
There are a number of different reporting requirements that are needed to comply with the SEC. These include the provision of financial statements on a quarterly basis (10-Q) along with an annual report (10-K). These statements must adhere to a specific format that governs how financial statements are prepared, and how the information is presented. There are many sections to these forms that must be included. Moreover, the information must be accurate, and prepared to guidelines laid out in the Generally Accepted
GAAP, but are provided here to give the statement users a more precise understanding of the financial position of the entity.
Upon reviewing your post, the insights I gain are the importance of companies following the rules and regulations enforced by The Securities and Exchange commission (SEC). In addition to the (SEC) financial accounting are also monitor by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) regulate the financial statements issued to shareholders. Zimmerman, J. L. (2014). I also realized the importance of companies making certain that the financial information posted, is accurate. By doing so, they help others such as stockholders and investors to make decisions that will be most beneficial to them.
Entity-wide disclosures are required under Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 280-10-50-40 through 280-10-50-42. The disclosures are required because every corporation does not report information in a similar fashion, and the disclosures would provide comparability of the financial statements among entities. For example, if a corporation uses a geographic approach in its financial statements, disclosing certain information about the products or services sold will make comparability to other companies much easier. The disclosures will also help with comparability within an entity if they decide to choose another method of reporting operating segments in the future. There are three types of entity-wide disclosures; products and services, geographic areas, and/or major customers. Every public company has to comply with the disclosures, even if the company has one reportable segment. The only exception to the entity-wide disclosures is if it is impractical to provide the information, such as it would be extremely costly to the corporation, or if the “internal reporting systems are not capable of gathering financial information by product or service by geographic area.” A disclosure should be made when entity-wide disclosures are impractical.
To enhance a user’s ability to understand and compare an entity’s operating results, reporting entities are required to describe all significant accounting policies in their financial statements. As such to decide if an accounting principal is significant, is the management’s decision.
The five research articles I have chosen to further my research on the convergence between U.S. GAAP and IFRS are The Implication of US GAAP and IFRS Convergence on American Business by Austin Willmore (2015), IFRS adoption by country by PWC (2015), International Financial Reporting Standards and American Generally Accepted Accounting Principles: the Convergence Lessons by Kuzina (2015), The economic impact of IFRS - a financial analysis perspective by Seay (2014), and Accounting for Leases The New Standard by CPA Journal (2016). These articles are related to my topic, where these researchers researched and analyzed the financial statement reporting on convergence of the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and certain accounts when adopting IFRS present a different result in the financial reporting for U.S. reporting companies when U.S. GAAP standards combined with IFRS. Also, these research articles discuss the existence of two systems of standards, U.S. GAAP and IFRS; and the issue and difficulty of the process to fully converge.
management discussion and analysis, audited financial statements, etc ….) as well as quarterly filings for publically traded companies. Access to which, all stakeholders (investors, creditors, suppliers,
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
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) writes the code that directs certified public accountants and accounting professionals in non-governmental environments. On occasions, the FASB proposes changes to those accounting standards. This process includes exposure drafts. The issuance of exposure drafts is for individual and business comments. The input from the respondents in comment letters is analyzed and considered by the board in the deliberations regarding the issue. "Proposed Accounting Standards Update – Presentation of Financial Statements (Topic 205): Reporting Discontinued Operations," published on April 2, 2013, discusses changing the reports to be more useful and reduce costs for preparers. This report will discuss the exposure draft in depth and the comment letters accordingly.
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
The purpose of this research report is to understand of two important concepts from the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting----the objective of general purpose financial reporting and qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. In this report, Myer Holdings Ltd is as an example to describe these two concepts. This report includes the analysis on whether the disclosure of PPE from Myer Holdings Ltd meets the requirements of AASB 116, especially the requirements of objective
There have been a number of proposed and upcoming changes to GAAP and solvency reporting standards in the US, Canada and Europe in recent years. In particular, significant efforts have been made to increase convergence between US GAAP and IFRS. The following report discusses the pros and cons of convergence between standards in different jurisdictions, as well as convergence between GAAP and solvency standards, in relation to insurance contracts. Here, the term ‘GAAP’ refers to financial reporting for investors, shareholders and creditors. Solvency standards refer to the regulatory requirements imposed on insurers. The jurisdictions discussed have been limited to those in which The Greatest Life Insurance Company operates in: namely, the US, Canada and Europe.
In any business operations, full financial disclosure refers to the provision of the necessary information about a company for better decision making by the people accustomed. It is the financial revelation of a given company. There are some financial disclosures in any business that ensure proper understanding of financial statements to the financial readers, or potential auditors. Examples are the annual financial reports and the financial declarations of the company. The annual financial reports of the enterprise are very useful since they discloses the revenues recognized in the business, and the accountability of the inventories plus the income taxes accounted for during that period of operation. Second, is the disclosure of this financial statements which gives the actual revelation of the company 's stock options, liabilities and the effects of foreign currencies?! This disclosure includes the company 's balance sheet of the year, income statements and also the cash statements flows of that year. This information gives a proper understanding of the financial status users about the effects of inflation and price change on property and inventories (Berger, 2011).
They have two operating sectors: automotive and financial services. Within these sectors, their business is divided into reportable segments based upon the organizational structure that they use to evaluate performance and make decisions on