9A Basic Theory Flashcards
What is the basis for financial report?
US GAAP, but it does not constitute a cohesive body of accounting theory
Why were concept statements issued?
Concept statements were issued to provide a theoretical framework for accounting standard development and a basis for financial reporting.
What does the ASC do?
It replaces all previously issued non-SEC accounting literature. It does not CHANGE GAAP but restructured all existing standard to provide one cohesive set of accounting standards.
What does ASC contain?
1) GAAP and relevant literature issued by SEC, 2) Accounting Standards Updates (ASUs)
What is the purpose of concept statements?
- To develop a theoretical framework and to set forth objectives and fundamental concepts that will be the basis for development of financial accounting and reporting guidance.
- To serve as a reference point in formulating standards.
Does the SFAC constitute GAAP?
No, the SFAC do not constitute authoritative GAAP and therefore are not part of the Codification
Per SFAC 8, what is the objective of financial reporting?
To provide financial information about the reporting entity that is useful to existing and potential investors, lenders, and other creditors in making decisions about providing resources to the entity.
Per SFAC 5, what are the components of the conceptual framework for financial accounting and reporting?
Include objectives, qualitative characteristics, elements, recognition, measurement, financial statements, earnings, fund flow, and liquidity.
What are the elements of financial statements?
Include assets, liabilities, equity, investments by owners, distribution to owners, comprehensive income, revenues, expenses, gains and losses.
Who are the users of financial statements?
The primary users are investors, lenders, and other creditors.
Who are not considered primary users of financial statements?
Management because they can get information internally and regulators and members of the public
What is the objective of financial reporting?
Provide:
1) information to primary users,
2) information about economic resources and claims,
3) changes in economic resources and claims,
4) financial performance through accrual accounting,
5) financial performance by past cash flow, and
6) changes in economic resources and claims not resulting from financial performance.
What do qualitative characeristics do in the conceptual framework?
Establish criteria for selecting and evaluating accounting alternatives which will meet the objectives.
What are the constraints as noted in the conceptual framework?
Cost-benefit constraint: Information is expensive. The costs of providing the information must not out-weigh the benefits that can be derived from using the information.
and materiality threshold: An item is material if its inclusion or omission would influence or change the judgment of a reasonable person.
Conservatism
When in doubt, choose the solution that will be least likely to overstate assets and income.
What are the two fundamental qualitative characteristics of accounting information?
Relevance and faithful representation
What is relevance?
Relevant information is capable of making a difference in the user’s decision. It has predictive value, confirmatory value, or both.
What is predictive value?
It requires that information be used to predict future outcomes. It is a characteristic of relevant information.
What is confirmatory value?
Information that either confirms or changes prior evaluations. It is a characteristic of relevant information.
How does materiality relate to relevant information?
An item is material if omitting it or misstating it could influence a user’s decision. Therefore, the materiality threshold relates to the qualititative characteristic of relevance.
What is faithful representation?
Information that depicts what it purports to represent. It should be complete, neutral and free from error.
What is completeness?
Information is presented or depicted in a way that users can understand the item being depicted. It is related to faithful representation.
What is neutrality?
Item is depicted without bias either favorably or unfavorably to users. It is related to faithful representation.
What is free from error?
Free from error means that there are no errors or omissions in the information reported. It is related to faithful representation.
What are the enhancing qualitative characteristics of accounting formation?
Comparability, verifiability, timeliness and understandability
What is comparability?
- Enhancing qualitative characteristic.
- Comparability enables users to identify and understand similarities and differences between items.
- Consistency refers to the user of the same accounting methods in different periods.
- Consistency therefore helps achieve comparability because it helps the user make comparisons across different time periods.
What is verifiability?
Enhancing qualititative characteristic. When different sources reach consensus or agreement on an amount of representation of an item.
What is timeliness?
Enhancing qualitative characteristic. Information is available to a deicsion maker when it is useful to make the decision.
What is understandability?
Enhancing qualitative characteristic. Classifying, characterizing and presenting information clearly and concisely. Assumes user has reasonable knowledge to understand financial statements.
Per SFAC 6, what are the basic elements of financial statements?
There are 10: assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses, gains (losses), investments by owners, distribution to owners, and comprehensive income.
What is the objective of the definition of elements per SFAC 6?
They are intended to assure that users will receive decision-useful information about enterprise resources (assets), claims to those resources (liablities and equity), and changes therein (the other seven elements).
In order to be included in the statements?.
an item must qualify as an element, meet the recognition criteria and be measurable.
SFAC 6: asset
1) obtain it or control it today,
2) will provide benefits in the future,
3) occurred as a result of a past transaction
SFAC 6: liability
1) owe it as of today,
2) you will sacrifice something in the future,
3) occurred as a result of a past transaction.
SFAC 6: equity
Owner’s residual interest in the assets of an entity after deducting liabilities:
1) source of distributions by enterprise to its owners,
2) no unconditional right to receive future transfer of assets; depends on future profitability,
3) affected by enterprise’s operations and circumstances
Per SFAC 6, what changes owner’s equity?
Revenue, expenses, gains, losses, investments by owners, distributions to owners, changes within owner’s equity
SFAC 6: net assets (equity)
Not for profit org:
1) absence of ownership,
2) operating purposes not centered on profit,
3) significant receipt of contributions, many involving donor-imposed restrictions.
SFAC 6: Permanently Restricted Assets
- Assets of a not-for-profit organization that come with certain restrictions.
- Permanently restricted assets are any assets that are given to a not-for-profit by an outside individual or agency with restrictions on their use or purpose.
- Donations of such assets are not uncommon, as individuals or organizations making the donations may have certain preferences as to how the assets donated are used by the not-for-profit.
- A common type of permanently restricted asset is the donation of real estate.
- For example, an individual or organization may donate a large chunk of real estate to a not-for-profit, such as a public university, with restrictions on the land to be only used for biological research rather than have the property resold for a capital gain at the university’s discretion.
SFAC6: Temporarily Restricted Assets
- Funds whose use is restricted by outside parties until some event occurs.
- For example, a not-for-profit organization may have received donated assets that are restricted by the donor until some time period has elapsed.
SFAC 6: Unrestricted Assets
- A group of items owned by the government with commercial or exchange value that have no external restrictions regarding their use or function.
- Unrestricted net assets appear in government accounting and are government-owned assets that can be utilized for any decided-upon purpose.
- This is in contrast to restricted net assets that are assigned to specific purposes.
SFAC 6: Revenues
Increases in assets or decreases in liabilities:
1) accomplishments of the earning process,
2) actual or expected cash inflows from central operations,
3) inflows reported gross
SFAC 6: Expenses
Decreases in assets or increases in liabilities:
1) sacrifices involved in carrying the earnings process,
2) actual or expected cash outflows from central operations,
3) outflows reported gross
Gains (losses
Increases (decreases) in equity:
1) from peripheral transactions and circumstances beyond control,
2) may b e classified according to sources or as operating and non-operating,
3) change in equity reported net
Transaction
external event involving transfer of something of value between two or more entitites
Event
happening of consequence of an entity (internal or external)
Circumstances
set of conditions developed from events which may occur imperceptibly and create possibly unanticipated situations
Accrual accounting
recording “cash consequence” transactions as they occur rather trhan with movement of cash; deals with process of cash movement isntead of beginning or end of process
Accrual accounting
recognizing revenues and related asset increases and expenses and related liability increases as they occur; expected future cash receipt or payment follows recognition of revenue (expense)