The recent changes in stock compensation for non-employees will reduce complexity and should also smooth volatility in recognizing associated compensation costs in the income statement. These changes were issued in June 2018 and are first effective for private companies with calendar year 2020, although early adoption is permitted. (more…)
CPAs Talk Tech Biz
A blog for the owners, founders, and executives of privately held technology companies.
NextCloud Computing – Customer Accounting for Implementation Costs
“Clean up” of accounting guidance is always needed to adapt to changing times. Businesses enter into transactions, both on the initiation and the receiving end, not envisioned decades ago. Computer hosting arrangements (“cloud computing”) is one such example. This post deals with only the customer end of a cloud computing arrangement. (more…)
New Going Concern Rules – First Year Observations
About two years ago, my post, FASB Shines a Light on “Going Concern”, summarized new disclosure rules that, for the first time, placed GAAP disclosure requirements on company management when preparing financial statements, based on their required consideration of the entity’s ability to continue as a going concern. The earlier post summarizes those new requirements. Since then, existing independent auditor/accountant reporting requirements were updated to respond to the changes required of management. Without reconsidering these changes here, I wondered whether any interesting observations could be made based on management’s and auditor’s responses to these new rules, which were first effective for calendar year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 financial statements. (more…)
Data Privacy-California Adds on to GDPR
Maybe companies got off easier than might have been, as this new law was passed in late-June 2018 in lieu of a potentially more restrictive November 2018 ballot initiative, when the initiative’s backers were convinced to throw support behind the passage of this law, instead. (more…)
Have You Acquired Assets or a Business – and Why Does it Matter?
To address the second part first, the accounting for the acquisition is dramatically different, depending on whether assets or a “business” is acquired. The following table summarizes some key differences. (more…)
Clarity Added for Stock Award Modification Accounting
Accounting guidance for situations when stock awards (stock options, restricted stock units and other equity-based instruments) are modified after the original grant date has been in place for a long time – with the original literature that covers fair value calculations and determining how much and when compensation expense is recorded. What hasn’t been clear for a long time is when the rules for how to handle modifications need to be applied to changes in stock awards. (more…)
GDPR – Just Media Hype?
Likely, you saw plenty of headlines as the final May 25, 2018 deadline approached. Just more alphabet soup? You may have ignored the article content as soon as you discovered that this was the name of European Union (EU) legislation.
What is it?
General Data Protection Regulation – protects data and privacy for EU residents (individuals), who are referred to as “data subjects”. Provisions cover collection, protection and retention of personal data. (more…)
Stranded Tax Effects from New Tax Act
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act), enacted on December 22, 2017, creates some interesting consequences when applying US GAAP principles for income tax accounting related to deferred taxes. FASB guidance requires that deferred income tax assets and liabilities be remeasured as a result of changes in tax laws or tax rates. As commonly known by now, the Act reduced the maximum tax rate for corporations to 21% from 35%. (more…)
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – Hurry Up and Figure Out the Accounting
As everyone knows by now, the U.S. tax system was widely altered on December 22, 2017 by enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act). The date of enactment is highlighted here because that is the date that triggers financial statement implications. Oh…so close to year-end for most companies. This timing situation is complicated because: (more…)