Accouting for leases may change soon

An article at CFO updates us on the current progress of an accounting rule that could change the way companies account for leases. Any company that leases plants, property or equipment would be responsible for FASB predicts this new rule will be in place by 2011.

Under the current rule, companies distinguish between capital lease obligations, which appear on the balance sheet, and operating leases (or rental contracts), which do not. Based on FASB's and IASB's discussion paper on the topic, released earlier this year, the new rule will likely require companies to also capitalize assets that have traditionally fallen under the "operating lease" category, making them appear more highly leveraged.

Read the full article here.

Will principle based accounting improve financial reporting?

In a recent article at The Vancouver Sun, they look at Canada's current switch of public companies to the IFRS accounting system. They believe that the standards are important, but one must also consider the quality of the accounting and financial statements that are in use. They did a study and found out that a principle based approach to accounting can improve the reporting, but the auditors must also have a principle based approach to auditing as well. Read the full article to see how they found that accounting was affected by the different approaches.