During the past year we’ve made a concerted effort to keep revenue experts aware of the dramatic overhaul on the horizon for revenue recognition guidance. We’ve come at this from our point of view, from the perspective of longtime industry experts and from the vantage point of some key verticals.
Today, we take a more regulatory bent as we highlight a recent interview with Wesley Bricker, deputy chief accountant for the office of the chief accountant for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the government agency tasked with overseeing all activities of financial professionals. That effort includes a direct role in enforcing the standard for public entities.
Though Bricker made sure to point out in his interview with online repository, SearchFinancialApplications.com, that opinions provided were his own and not on behalf of the commission, the article still offered some illuminating tidbits.
Namely:
When asked what SEC staff has been encouraging companies to do to be properly prepared for the new standard, Bricker said “we’re encouraging companies to start now and to not underestimate the comprehensive nature of the effort involved.”
To emphasize his point of not underestimating the effort at hand, Bricker noted that the need to take a fresh look at all contracts will not only require the need to form quality judgments and estimates for the information in the financial reports, but enhanced accounting policy roles, designing systems and appropriate controls in place to support financial statement preparation with regard to the new standard.
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