The purpose of the TRG is to seek feedback on potential issues related to implementation of IFRS 17, Insurance Contracts. During the meeting, the TRG discussed the following:

• Combination of insurance contracts
• Determining the risk adjustment for non-financial risk in a group of entities
• Cash flows within the contract boundary
• Boundary of reinsurance contracts held with repricing mechanisms
• Determining the quantity of benefits for identifying coverage units
• Implementation challenges outreach report
• Reporting on other questions submitted

A summary on the meeting and audio recordings of each session are available on the TRG meeting page on the International Accounting Standards Board's website.

Smaller companies may lack resources to make timely accounting changes, resulting in an implementation lag and significant issues, including restatements and control weaknesses.

Looking at 2,803 Russell 3000 companies that referenced ASC 606 in Q4 financial statements, they considered the following factors when assessing a company’s implementation process:

• Adoption Method Used
• Control Weakness
• Impact Disclosure
• Revenue streams and specific areas of accounting affected
• Other impacts
• Completion stage
• SEC Comment Letters
• Outlook

Review the analysis on Audit Analytics' website.

The FASB’s Accounting Standards Update No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, provides a comprehensive revenue recognition model intended to reduce the complexity inherent in today’s guidance by increasing financial statement comparability across companies and industries.

Review the article on FEI's website.

Review the speech on the SEC's website and an interview on Merrill Corporation's website.

Mr. Bricker told the attendees at Baruch College’s Financial Reporting Conference in New York: “With non-GAAP and other disclosures, our rules require that companies must have disclosure controls and procedures, which typically would include appropriate governance practices regarding the measures and policies and controls that prevent error, manipulation, or mischief with the numbers, including a policy that addresses how any changes in the non-GAAP measure will be reported and how corrections of errors will be evaluated”.

Review the full article on Accounting Today's website.

Board member Françoise Flores and technical staff provide an overview of the revised Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting, followed by a Q&A session.

Please click to access the recording here.

The graphs consist of a blueprint illustrating the participants in the financial reporting process; a flow chart showing a simplified version of the blueprint; and a segment chart outlining the reporting requirements for domestic issuers, foreign private issuers, and private companies.

The proposed rule would “refocus the analysis that must be conducted to determine whether an auditor is independent when the auditor has a lending relationship with certain shareholders of an audit client at any time during an audit or professional engagement period.”

The working drafts address the following topics:

• Gaming entities’ accounting for management contract revenues, including costs reimbursed by managed properties (gaming)
• Contract modifications (telecommunications)

Comments on the working drafts are due by July 2, 2018.

For more information, see the revenue recognition page on the AICPA’s Web site.

Summary of main aspects of the Conceptual Framework

The 2018 Conceptual Framework is structured into an introductory explanation on the status and purpose of the Conceptual Framework, eight chapters, and a glossary:

Review our Global IAS Plus page for a summary of the key content of each chapter.

The Conceptual Framework does not have a stated effective date and the Board will start using it immediately.

References to the Conceptual Framework

Together with the revised Conceptual Framework, the Board has also issued Amendments to References to the Conceptual Framework in IFRS Standards. The document contains amendments to IFRS 2, IFRS 3, IFRS 6, IFRS 14, IAS 1, IAS 8, IAS 34, IAS 37, IAS 38, IFRIC 12, IFRIC 19, IFRIC 20, IFRIC 22, and SIC-32. Not all amendments, however update those pronouncements with regard to references to and quotes from the framework so that they refer to the revised Conceptual Framework. Some pronouncements are only updated to indicate which version of the framework they are referencing to (the IASC framework adopted by the Board in 2001, the IASB framework of 2010, or the new revised framework of 2018) or to indicate that definitions in the standard have not been updated with the new definitions developed in the revised Conceptual Framework.

The amendments, where they actually are updates, are effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2020.

Additional information

• Press release (includes a three minute introductory video)
• Feedback statement
• One page factsheet on the new framework

The Board also announced that on April 18, 2018, there will be two live web presentations to introduce the revised Conceptual Framework. Please click for more information and registration on the Board's website.