On 1 July 2009, the FASB Accounting Standards Codification is expected to become the single official source of authoritative, nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP):

• Replacement of existing standards. Pending approval by the FASB, after 1 July 2009, only one level of authoritative GAAP will exist, other than guidance issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All other literature will be non-authoritative.
• Subsequent issuance of new standards. There will also be an important change in how standards are issued after the Codification becomes GAAP. The FASB will no longer issue Statements of Financial Accounting Standards, Interpretations, FASB Staff Positions, or EITF Abstracts. Rather, all changes to GAAP, regardless of how they would have been issued currently, will be in the form of Codification Updates.

To explain the forthcoming changes, we have posted a story Major Changes to U.S. GAAP Structure Slated for July 1, 2009 (PDF 37k), published in the December 2008 issue of The FASB Report, with permission from the Financial Accounting Foundation, 401 Merritt 7, Norwalk, Connecticut, USA.