Long-awaited FASB, IASB guidance significantly changes revenue recognition in financial statements
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have issued new joint guidance that addresses one of the most important measures investors use when assessing a company’s performance and prospects — revenue. FASB’s version, communicated in Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, standardizes and simplifies the revenue recognition process for customer contracts across different industries and geographic locations. It also requires more comprehensive footnote disclosures for all types of public and private companies.
Although companies will ultimately report the same total amount of revenue over time, their performance could look different to investors as a result of changes in the timing of revenue recognition. Many companies are expected to record revenues earlier under the new guidance. This is because the guidance requires companies to estimate the effects of variable consideration, such as sales incentives, discounts and warranties.
Almost every company will be affected in some way. But companies in some industries are expected to feel the changes more than others.
The genesis of the new converged guidance
The converged guidance has been in the works for more than 10 years. U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) had divergent rules regarding revenue recognition, each with its own inconsistencies and weaknesses. GAAP, which had general rules along with more than 200 industry- and transaction-specific rules, produced different accounting for transactions that were economically similar. IFRS went to the other extreme — it provided limited guidance that required inadequate detail. Moreover, it was based on different fundamental principles.
Both the new GAAP guidance and the new corresponding IFRS rule are based on the following core principle: “Recognize revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled in exchange for the goods or services.”
5 steps of revenue recognition
To help achieve that core principle, the new guidance lays out five steps a company must follow to determine when and how to properly recognize revenue on its financial statements:
Enhanced revenue-related disclosures
Currently, most companies provide limited information about revenue contracts. The existing rules require only descriptions of a company’s revenue-related accounting policies and their effects on revenue, including rights of return, the company’s role as a principal or agent, and customer payments and incentives. Investors and other users of financial statements indicated that the disclosure requirements in both GAAP and IFRS were insufficient.
The new rules expand disclosure requirements. They require a cohesive set of qualitative and quantitative disclosures intended to provide users of financial statements with useful information about the company’s contracts with customers. The disclosures will include information about the nature, amount, timing and uncertainty of revenue and cash flows arising from a company's customer contracts.
Industry-specific impact
The new rules will likely have a particularly significant impact on certain industries, including those that commonly sell goods or services in bundled packages or enter into contracts that include variable payment terms, such as performance bonuses or rights of return.
For example, wireless providers (which may sell a customer a phone at the same time as a service plan) and software companies (which sell licenses to software along with future upgrades or other vendor obligations) may see accelerated recognition of revenue. Currently, these companies generally recognize revenue only to the extent they have actually received cash.
Software companies could also be affected by rules regarding recognition of royalties from licenses. The distinction between term licenses and perpetual licenses will be eliminated, with the focus shifting to the performance obligations under a license.
The licensing rules could affect media companies that collect sales- or usage-based royalties on intellectual property, as well. The new rules allow recognition of such revenue only when the underlying sale or usage occurs.
The new rules apply only to revenues from customer contracts related to the transfer of nonfinancial assets. Contracts that remain within the scope of other FASB topics include insurance contracts, leases, financial instruments, guarantees and nonmonetary exchanges between entities in the same line of business to facilitate sales.
Additional guidance
The guidance also includes rules for accounting for some costs related to obtaining or fulfilling a contract with a customer — addressing whether to capitalize or expense them. Incremental costs of obtaining a contract (those that wouldn’t otherwise be incurred, such as sales commissions) are recognized as an asset.
For fulfillment costs, the company will apply any other applicable standards (such as those for software or property, plant and equipment). If none apply, the company recognizes an asset from the costs if they meet certain criteria.
What now?
The new guidance is effective for public companies for annual reporting periods (including interim reporting periods within) beginning after Dec. 15, 2016. Early implementation is not allowed for public companies.
For nonpublic companies, compliance is required for annual reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2017, and interim and annual reporting periods after those periods. A nonpublic entity may elect early adoption, but no earlier than the effective date for public entities.
Although the first applicable reporting period is more than two years away, the rules will require many companies to implement new controls, processes and systems. The time to begin preparing is now, especially if you choose to adjust the results from prior periods and provide the three-year comparison required under retrospective application of the new guidance.
June 10, 2014