Category: Accounting and Auditing
When the SEC speaks about non-GAAP measures, it turns out that most companies listen
by Cydney Posner In this article, the WSJ reports on new data, prepared for the WSJ by Audit Analytics, showing how faithfully companies have conformed their disclosures to the recent guidance from the Corp Fin staff on non-GAAP financial measures. (See this PubCo post.) As more and more companies have prominently […]
New study examines benefits of enhanced audit report in the UK
by Cydney Posner In light of the closing of the comment period for the PCAOB reproposal of an expanded audit report standard (see this PubCo post and this PubCo post), including a requirement to disclose critical audit matters, it may be useful to examine the experience of another country that has […]
Comments on PCAOB reproposal of expanded auditor’s report reflect predictable split
by Cydney Posner As discussed in this PubCo post, in May of this year, after five years of outreach, the PCAOB once again attempted to make the auditor’s report more relevant and informative to investors by reproposing the auditor reporting standard, The Auditor’s Report on an Audit of Financial Statements When […]
Study shows more restatements and internal control weaknesses among “heavy users” of non-GAAP measures
by Cydney Posner The non-GAAP financial measures pile-on continues. Certainly, the SEC has recently been making the public-speaking rounds and issuing CDIs warning companies of its concern about abuses of non-GAAP metrics, such as substituting individually tailored revenue recognition and measurement methods for those of GAAP or using a non-GAAP measure […]
More on the SEC’s Disclosure Update and Simplification Proposing Release
by Cydney Posner In her statement at the SEC open meeting to vote on issuing the “Disclosure Update and Simplification Proposing Release,” SEC Commissioner Kara Stein protested that “this proposal may be framed in such a hyper-technical way that it fails to provide a bona fide opportunity for a wide […]
Center for Audit Quality provides tool to help audit committees assess non-GAAP financial measures
by Cydney Posner The Center for Audit Quality has released a new tool, Questions on Non-GAAP Measures: A Tool for Audit Committees, to help audit committees cope with non-GAAP financial measures (NGFMs). Rather than provide a checklist, the CAQ provides examples of sample questions that audit committees should consider asking of management […]
SEC votes to propose rule amendments to eliminate outdated or redundant provisions
by Cydney Posner At an open meeting today, the SEC voted to take an interim step in its disclosure effectiveness project, proposing amendments “to eliminate redundant, overlapping, outdated, or superseded provisions,” in light of subsequent changes to SEC disclosure requirements as well as GAAP and IFRS requirements. This is not […]
Corp Fin Chief Accountant sheds more light on non-GAAP CDIs
by Cydney Posner In a webcast yesterday, “Non-GAAP Disclosures: The SEC Speaks,” sponsored by TheCorporateCounsel.net, Corp Fin Chief Accountant Mark Kronforst, speaking for himself and not the SEC, shed more light on the recent guidance from the Corp Fin staff on non-GAAP financial measures (NGFMs). (See this PubCo post.) Kronforst […]
SEC permits use of Inline XBRL — will it be enough to make XBRL great?
by Cydney Posner Until now, companies have been required to provide the financial statements accompanying their periodic and current reports in “structured,” i.e., machine-readable, format using XBRL and to provide this XBRL data as an exhibit to their filings. Today, the SEC issued an order allowing companies, on a voluntary […]
Could disclosure avert a decline in investment in human capital?
by Cydney Posner Much attention has been paid to the decline in spending on R&D and capital investments attributed to short-termist myopia. Hedge fund activists have been impugned for pressuring companies to return capital to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends at the expense of funding R&D and […]
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