One of the issues global companies have always faced is how to manage a global sales force in an environment where local accounting rules for revenue recognition vary. Countless times, sales teams have vented to me because U.S. GAAP doesn’t allow us to recognize revenue when IFRS does. My response has always been that accounting rules should inform us, but they don’t define good business. Ultimately, the sales team needs to negotiate the best deal for the company (only one consideration of which might be whether or not we can recognize revenue), and we accountants will advise them on the best way to structure the deal and, ultimately, figure out how to account for it.
The new revenue recognition rules, expected to be issued simultaneously by the FASB and IASB in Q1 2014, will create a new global environment with enhanced comparability across industries and geographies. Global companies will be operating on the same playing field, which should give them some relief. OK, sales guys—time to stop venting and focus on making good business deals.
Judgment is a double-edged sword
The beauty of the proposed new rules is that they allow for judgment. However, that’s a double-edged sword, since filers have abused “judgment” in revenue recognition in the past and caused regulators (the SEC, EITF, AICPA, et al.) to respond by drawing “bright lines” in their issuance of “clarifying literature” (staff accounting bulletins, technical practice aids, EITF interpretations) to provide consistency in accounting and reporting where the FASB hadn’t drawn those lines. It will certainly be interesting to see how well regulators embrace this principles-based approach to accounting for revenue with this complete converged rewrite of international accounting standards.
Under the new revenue recognition rules, the five basic steps for accounting are:
- Identifying the contract with the customer. (Yes, sales team, you still need to include all of the deal in the contract. We still don’t like verbal side arrangements.)
- Identification of the separate performance obligations in the arrangement. (Similar to current multiple-element arrangement rules, these don’t need to have a price spelled out in the contract.)
- Determining the transaction price.
- Allocating the transaction price to the separate performance obligations in the contract. (This will require significant judgment, thus the need to thoroughly document the basis for your assumptions.)
- Recognition of revenue when each separate performance obligation is delivered.
The latest clarifications from redeliberations have added back a requirement for collectibility to be probable—and note that this is the one minor nonconverged compromise point in the standard; there are minor differences in the FASB and the IASB definitions of “probable.”
For those who aren’t yet familiar with how the new rules will roll out, we are expecting the new standards to be effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2016. For most calendar-year companies that means 2017, and one year later for private companies. With a retrospective presentation of prior periods, companies will be considering and evaluating the new revenue recognition rules for 2015, 2016 and 2017 transactions—which gives them 2014 (one year—next year!) to figure out how they’re going to track this. Alternatively, companies may elect to apply a modified retrospective approach by recording the cumulative effect of the change and providing supplemental disclosures for comparability of prior periods.
Whichever approach companies take, it will be a significant endeavor with complex arrangements. This change will require support from more than just the accounting team. For example:
- Evaluating and refining IT systems to support the new revenue recognition process and considerations
- Updating sales team tools and legal business forms
- Enhancing accounting processes to document the basis for judgments made
- Designing internal control procedures to address new risks under the new rules
At the end of the day, the global convergence of revenue recognition rules should provide more flexibility in how companies do business. But they don’t remove their responsibility to ensure consistency of accounting and reporting across industries.
Editor’s note: ComplianceWeek interviewed Diana for its article on the new rev rec rules in today’s edition. (Subscription required.)
Sheila Manzano receives RoseRyan’s highest honor: the TrEAT Award
We are proud to announce that Sheila Manzano is the recipient of this year’s TrEAT Award. Now in its third year, the TrEAT Award honors a guru who best exemplifies our values (Trustworthy, Excel, Advocate and Team) throughout the year.
TrEAT Award recipients are chosen by the leadership team based on nominations from the entire staff. This year there were 28 nominees, and the team says making the final choice is one of the hardest decisions they make all year. The honoree may be singled out for contributions so over the top that we are stunned, or for quietly and consistently putting our values into action in small ways every day.
Sheila falls into both camps. She is amazing on a regular basis, in her work with clients and with colleagues, and puts her best foot forward in everyday actions. Sheila has calmed the waters of more than one client storm this year, and we are sure that she preserved the sanity of at least one frazzled project lead. She is unfailingly cheerful (and never, ever complains, at least to us), and she is always offering to provide extra help—she clocked more overtime than any of us this year.
Sheila not only delivers first-rate work for clients as a key member of our SOX team, but also serves as RoseRyan’s controller and administers our health benefits—for anyone else, that could be a full-time job in itself. She is tireless in her support for internal projects, too, such as a long-term strategic initiative and the Values Team. Sometimes, we’re not sure how she keeps her own sanity.
Congratulations, Sheila, and thank you for living our values every day all year long.
A single set of global accounting standards seems like a dream, but there’s a sliver of hope
During my time in public accounting in Canada and throughout my experience in the U.K., differences between various countries’ generally accepted accounting principles were often front and center. There were continual discussions of a shared GAAP around the world—a utopian world for accountants, auditors and investors alike.
Initially, given the seemingly insurmountable challenges of converging disparate approaches, I was among the skeptics who thought reconciling differences between GAAPs would take a lifetime. I knew international standards were in the works and had spent enough time reconciling Canadian to U.S. GAAP for SEC filings to see the complexities of converging standards. Over the years, my outlook for converged GAAP has grown more optimistic. The challenges (politics, prioritization, variances in application and enforceability, cost and so on) continue, but the need for an international approach is greater than ever. Canada adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for most public companies for financial years beginning Jan. 1, 2011, and companies whose securities are publicly traded in the U.S. have the option of using U.S. GAAP. Canada does not get the benefit of a single accounting system until U.S. GAAP and international GAAP converge.
Fast-forward to 2013, and it is a time for celebration. The FASB has voted to move forward with the long-awaited final revenue recognition standard. (For details, read Diana Gilbert’s How the New Revenue Recognition Rules Should Help Global Businesses.) Joint FASB-IASB standards are expected in the areas of financial instruments and leasing.
IFRS has been adopted by 14 of the G20 countries for all or most companies in their public capital markets. The U.S. permits, but does not require, IFRS for foreign issuers. Investors and other stakeholders still need to know if U.S. GAAP or IFRS has been adopted, depending on the capital market. This makes things very complex: investors need to reconcile adjustments and disclosures for investments and subsidiaries, but also account for local variations in interpretations, applications, enforceability and audits. When implementation of aligned revenue standards is complete, that will be real progress, as investors will have confidence that they are comparing apples with apples on the top line.
Will this progress continue? How long will it take? The revenue standard was 11 years in the making, and priorities constantly shift. However, there is a new model for collaboration going forward. In April 2013, the creation of the Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF) was announced. This group of national accounting standards boards (including FASB) and regional bodies with an interest in financial reporting will provide both technical advice and feedback to the IASB. The ASAF had its fourth meeting Dec. 5 and 6. The agenda items included the 2013 Lease Exposure Draft (IASB) and the 2013 FASB Accounting Standards Update. ASAF received over 600 comment letters, and there are some significant differences in opinion. Leases will need to be re-deliberated, and there is skepticism about the chances for agreement on a converged approach.
Still, I am hopeful that the new ASAF will be successful in improving alignment. FASB Chairman Russell G. Golden has outlined a vision for more common and comparable financial standards, which he describes as a “new, decentralized, multi-lateral model of international standard setting that is consistent with the goal of promoting greater convergence in global financial accounting standards.” It is going to take time to find the right model, and hopefully the next 10 years will be more successful than the past 10.
Digital health: the new startup opportunity
A number of new trends are emerging against the backdrop of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–mandated health insurance exchanges being rolled out. One is the creation of new businesses based on digital technologies that allow individuals to manage and improve their own health, and gives service providers the ability to deliver increased quality and efficiency at lower costs. These companies span from PracticeFusion (EHR), which addresses efficiency of operations, to Fitbit, which makes a wearable device that measures the wearer’s physical activity and health.
Digital health as an industry sector is not new; there has always been IT investment throughout the healthcare industry, and as in any business, healthcare’s administrative aspects have been serviced with increasing levels of technology. But digital health as an industry trend is just now receiving higher visibility, just outside the glaring spotlight of the ACA.
Statistics on the size of this industry are inevitably slanted depending on the perspective. But however you look at it, this new industry is large and growing quickly. Rock Health, a digital health incubator, estimates that the sector saw $1.4 billion in venture capital investment in 2012, up 46 percent over 2011. Investment at that level would represent about 5 percent of total venture capital investments in 2012—a significant number.
Growth areas in digital health include:
From a practical point of view for finance professionals, digital health companies will often have a complex combination of hardware, software and services in their products—but that is not unusual for technology companies. Digital health companies will not pose the unique accounting challenges we experienced with the pharma and biotech life sciences companies. I believe the new digital health companies will operate with the B2C and B2B models we know and understand. The FDA recently issued final guidance on mobile medical apps that appears to support a hands-off approach to most apps. If you have an app on your phone that’s monitoring an insulin pump, rest assured the FDA is going to have a hand in it. But for many of the new digital health companies, financial operations will look familiar and the FDA will not be a gatekeeper.
We will wait and see how digital health as a sector unfolds. Undoubtedly, we will see failures as in any emerging sector opportunity, and we will see technology thrown at needs that don’t exist. But the macro trends are too large for digital health to not become an important part of the evolution of healthcare and the startup economy.
The Friday Cocktail: 10K-O
Looking to stave off the chill of early winter? Try the 10K-O. This deeply smoky cocktail puts us in mind of a vision quest under a starry desert sky. (Drink a couple and you may have one, regardless of where you are.) Even if you don’t meet your spirit animal, at least you’ll feel ready to knock out any SEC requirement. For cooler heads, the 10K-O’s nonalcoholic mate provides a spicy ginger kick.
Cocktail recipe:
Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a grapefruit peel.
Nonalcoholic recipe:
Add lime juice and ¾ oz simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake for 10 seconds. Strain over fresh ice and top with ginger ale. Garnish with the lime wheel.
Check out the rest of our recipes in the RoseRyan 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection cocktail book. Every one of these drinks has its charms, thanks to the fine mixologists at the Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, California, who invented them.
*These ingredients are available at BevMo and specialty shops.
Bay Area leaders take top honors in Entrepreneur of the Year™ awards
Three Bay Area business leaders took home top national honors in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Awards program.
The national overall winner is Hamid Moghadam, CEO of Prologis; Tom Bedecarré, CEO of AKQA, was named top entrepreneur in the Media, Entertainment and Communications category, and Nicholas Woodman, CEO of GoPro, won in the Retail and Consumer Products category. EY announced the 11 national honorees Nov. 16 in Palm Springs; the list of winners is here.
These winners were chosen from a group of more than 250 outstanding entrepreneurs from across the country. It was a very strong showing for Northern California—direct evidence that the region continues to be an innovation engine that produces new companies, technologies and ideas.
All nominees, as in all the years that I have been involved with this program, are diverse. The companies these entrepreneurs lead are a mix of public, private, family-owned, nonprofit and women-owned businesses.
Many candidates are serial entrepreneurs and have made fortunes; even though many of them don’t have to work, they wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. What drives them and makes them so successful? Among the traits I’ve seen, a strong work ethic and family are most meaningful to these CEOs.
Some of the other common traits of these high-impact performers include:
Much is said about the ripple effect of the work and efforts of these job creators, and I believe the world is watching them and the organizations they build. We do this not out of envy, but because they are the role models for what it takes to be successful in the 21st century.
They bring the best ideas to market, build the strongest teams and deliver the best products and services, and their companies energize the economy and promote stability and long-term growth. Recognizing these achievements is a key reason RoseRyan is proud to be a sponsor of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ program, which is in its 27th year.
The Friday Cocktail: Knock Your SOX Off
There are plenty of festive beverages in RoseRyan’s 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection, but with Thanksgiving less than a week away, Knock Your SOX Off is a top choice. It’s a creamy, nog-like drink that actually could knock your socks off, but only if you have more than one—and one is perfection. It’s light and refreshing, yet warms you to your toes. Don’t like rye whiskey? Bourbon will do. The nonalcoholic version, which gets its heat from ginger, will also stave off the pain of compliance chores.
Cocktail recipe:
Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice for about 10 seconds. Add 3-4 ice cubes and shake for another 10 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
Nonalcoholic version:
Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake for 10 seconds without ice. Add 1 ice cube and shake for 10 seconds. Strain over fresh ice and top with soda water.
Check out the rest of our recipes in the RoseRyan 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection cocktail book. Every one of these drinks has its charms, thanks to the fine mixologists at the Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, California, who invented them.
To stay relevant, finance pros must embrace change
For the past couple of years, emerging growth companies have been reaping the benefits of cloud computing. The momentum of small startup companies using innovative technology to make their business processes more efficient can be seen everywhere.
As a financial consultant specializing in emerging growth companies, I have been particularly amazed at the positive impacts that the “paperless” office and cloud computing are having on my clients every day. Gone are the gray stainless-steel filing cabinets packed with invoices, checks and receipts. My files are stored in the cloud and accessible from my computer wherever I go.
In an ever-constant quest for improvement, I’m continually changing and fine-tuning our accounting and finance processes. That includes turning to the myriad of cloud applications, such as Bill.com, Expensify and Right Networks, that provide high-speed, low-cost solutions. They make me, and my clients, more efficient and effective. Best of all, I can control and implement these applications myself—no need to rely on the IT department. And the tools can scale down to meet the needs of a startup company.
Having recently attended webinars and presentations by finance executives across a variety of industries, I think it’s clear that cloud technology is transforming the way accounting and finance must do business—but we seem to be the laggard adopters. Only 3 percent of our potential market is in the cloud, compared to a healthy 35 percent for sales and other services businesses, and about 20 percent in HR fields.
We cannot afford to ignore the time- and cost-saving benefits—not to mention the accuracy and convenience of, say, being able to compile original financial documents for financing due diligence or an audit at the click of a button.
It’s time for finance to embrace the change and deliver better, faster information to company executives. We need to take advantage of cloud technology if we are to shed the image of being the “work horse” department, and make full use of our analytical expertise and partner up with internal corporate functions to provide more meaningful and timely information that will impact the company’s bottom line.
We must be ready to re-educate, re-learn and re-invent the future.
How the new revenue recognition rules should help global businesses
One of the issues global companies have always faced is how to manage a global sales force in an environment where local accounting rules for revenue recognition vary. Countless times, sales teams have vented to me because U.S. GAAP doesn’t allow us to recognize revenue when IFRS does. My response has always been that accounting rules should inform us, but they don’t define good business. Ultimately, the sales team needs to negotiate the best deal for the company (only one consideration of which might be whether or not we can recognize revenue), and we accountants will advise them on the best way to structure the deal and, ultimately, figure out how to account for it.
The new revenue recognition rules, expected to be issued simultaneously by the FASB and IASB in Q1 2014, will create a new global environment with enhanced comparability across industries and geographies. Global companies will be operating on the same playing field, which should give them some relief. OK, sales guys—time to stop venting and focus on making good business deals.
Judgment is a double-edged sword
The beauty of the proposed new rules is that they allow for judgment. However, that’s a double-edged sword, since filers have abused “judgment” in revenue recognition in the past and caused regulators (the SEC, EITF, AICPA, et al.) to respond by drawing “bright lines” in their issuance of “clarifying literature” (staff accounting bulletins, technical practice aids, EITF interpretations) to provide consistency in accounting and reporting where the FASB hadn’t drawn those lines. It will certainly be interesting to see how well regulators embrace this principles-based approach to accounting for revenue with this complete converged rewrite of international accounting standards.
Under the new revenue recognition rules, the five basic steps for accounting are:
The latest clarifications from redeliberations have added back a requirement for collectibility to be probable—and note that this is the one minor nonconverged compromise point in the standard; there are minor differences in the FASB and the IASB definitions of “probable.”
For those who aren’t yet familiar with how the new rules will roll out, we are expecting the new standards to be effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2016. For most calendar-year companies that means 2017, and one year later for private companies. With a retrospective presentation of prior periods, companies will be considering and evaluating the new revenue recognition rules for 2015, 2016 and 2017 transactions—which gives them 2014 (one year—next year!) to figure out how they’re going to track this. Alternatively, companies may elect to apply a modified retrospective approach by recording the cumulative effect of the change and providing supplemental disclosures for comparability of prior periods.
Whichever approach companies take, it will be a significant endeavor with complex arrangements. This change will require support from more than just the accounting team. For example:
At the end of the day, the global convergence of revenue recognition rules should provide more flexibility in how companies do business. But they don’t remove their responsibility to ensure consistency of accounting and reporting across industries.
Editor’s note: ComplianceWeek interviewed Diana for its article on the new rev rec rules in today’s edition. (Subscription required.)
Friday cocktail: Capital Raise
If the end of Daylight Savings Time has got you down, you might try one of our favorite remedies: the Capital Raise, a citrusy refresher from our 20th Anniversary Cocktail Collection. It packs a subtle punch that will leave you feeling as high and light as the Peruvian Andes—or as if you’d just raised a bunch of money. It also makes a great party punch. For a lower-altitude cooler, try the elegant, pear-infused alcohol-free alternative.
Single cocktail:
Shake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Float a lemon wheel on top.
Punch recipe:
Mix all ingredients in a punch bowl with an ice block.
Nonalcoholic recipe:
Muddle the pear with the simple syrup, orange bitters, and leaves from 2 small sprigs lemon thyme. Add ice and shake vigorously. Use a fine mesh tea strainer to strain over ice into a Collins glass. Top with soda and garnish with a fresh thyme sprig.
Check out the rest of our recipes in our cocktail book. They are also sure to make the pain of cash flow leaks, equity glitches, delayed closes and all manner of finance headaches fade away (briefly). Every one of these drinks has its charms, thanks to the fine mixologists at the Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, California, who invented them. We hope you find one you love.
New report: how companies can keep their footing amid chaos
Any business faces challenges great and small, day in and day out, but some situations carry a considerable measure of risk, volatility and disruption potential. The top five situations most likely to disrupt a business and cause significant risk are market instability, business transitions, funding uncertainty, changes in corporate strategy, and finance talent shortfalls, according to our new intelligence report, The Chaos Chronicles.
After 20 years in business, RoseRyan gurus have lived through pretty much every kind of chaotic business situation, steering companies around the fault lines or cleaning up the mess. Our report draws on those experiences with real-world stories and on-the-ground advice to help you cope when chaos strikes.
By chaos, we mean hair-on-fire scrambling to prevent looming business disaster, or slow-motion disintegration into operational dysfunction, or the disarray that results when finance departments held together with duct tape and staples finally come undone, or similarly ulcer-inducing scenes.
Prevention is usually the best cure, but it isn’t always possible. And it can happen to anyone—even the best and the brightest have found themselves caught up in chaos simply because they didn’t train their attention on the right risk factors.
Download The Chaos Chronicles to learn more. Authors Stephen Ambler, Chris Kondo, Kathy Ryan, Ray Solari and Pat Voll tell true tales of chaos—how it happens, what results from it, how to fix it and how to prevent it.