Excerpts from Recommendations

To better enable all financial statement users to make consistent, apples-to-apples comparisons among quarterly financial reports, we recommend that all public companies voluntarily adopt a consistent template for quarterly earnings releases. The template would provide management with a user-friendly format in which to highlight issues of importance in an informative and concise manner. These recommendations are based on a comprehensive review of quarterly earnings announcements from a number of companies and discussions with financial experts and users of financial statements.

In order to improve the quality of communications between companies and investors, we strongly urge companies to issue quarterly earning reports that:

• End quarterly earnings guidance
• Include a GAAP income statement that starts at the revenue line and proceeds to net income
• Position GAAP reconciliation tables in immediate proximity to the non-GAAP financial measures they are meant to illuminate
• Include a balance sheet and statement of cash flows
• Place information consistently