Observations on the FASB’s Decision to Potentially Delay the New Lease Standard Implementation
Written by Ane Ohm on Tuesday, August 6, 2019
It’s been a couple of weeks since the FASB announced its decision to potentially delay the implementation of the new lease standard. In that time, I’ve spoken with a number of CPA firms and industry experts, as well as spent time considering the path forward. Here are my observations on the potential delay.
How to Help Clients With the New Lease Standard While Maintaining Independence
As a CPA, you know the importance of maintaining independence while working with your clients. At the same time, your clients rely on you for expertise and assistance, particularly with new accounting standards. With this, I’m hearing a recurring theme around the new lease standard: How can I, as a CPA firm, help my clients implement the new standard while remaining independent?
Each firm has to make their own decision on whether their processes allow them to maintain their independence, but we’ll provide some considerations to keep in mind in this blog.
Understanding the Lessee Footnote Disclosure for ASC 842, the New Lease Standard
The objective of the footnote disclosure is to enable users of financial statements to assess the amount and timing of cash flows arising from leases.
Under the previous lease standard, ASC 840, these disclosures were primarily limited to a maturity schedule that showed each of the next five years’ committed payments, with further payments lumped together. Further, there was no discount rate applied, it was just the payments themselves. For many organizations, it meant that lease disclosures were fairly easy to handle with a spreadsheet.
The new lease standard increases the scope and complexity of the financial statement footnote disclosure with additional requirements for both quantitative and qualitative disclosures. Handling these disclosures with a spreadsheet has become far more difficult than before.
CPA Firm Independence and Technology: Complying with AICPA Guidelines
When a CPA firm attests to the accuracy of a client’s financial statements, maintaining their
independence is important to assure that they have not been unduly influenced to deliberately
or inadvertently participate in misstating published financial statements.
With the advent of new technologies, there are new factors for CPA firms to consider and the
AICPA has developed hosting services guidelines to assist in this effort.
What We Want to See Happen With the New Lease Standard in 2019
As we kick off 2019, everyone posts predictions for the coming year and I enjoy reading those as much as the next person. With the new lease standard, it seems that predictions are more along the lines of, “the sky is falling!” There are only so many times we can hear that we’re in dire straits, so I thought I’d shake it up a bit.
Understanding the reality and the timeline of the new lease standard, what do I want to happen in 2019? Read on for my wishlist.
Ask the Expert: John Hepp Discusses the New Lease Standard
Important note: This is a judgment-based standard, which means there are few hard-and-fast rules and the treatment of your leases will depend on your unique situation. It's important that you always double-check decisions with an accounting professional who knows your circumstances. This blog should not be considered or take the place of professional advice or services.
We’re excited this month to share insights from our recent conversation with industry expert John Hepp. John is a retired partner from Grant Thornton and a former FASB project manager. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently on the faculty at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
John discussed several nuances of the new lease accounting standard, from practical expedients (“the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down”) to discount rates and much more.
CPA Playbook for Talking to Clients About the New Lease Standard
Have you spoken with your clients about the new lease standard? How many clients have begun preparing for implementation? Since the new lease standard doesn’t go into effect for another year for non-public organizations and most are still dealing with the new revenue recognition standard, we’re hearing that many haven’t put much effort into preparing for the new lease standard.
Given the time-consuming nature of implementing the new lease standard, it’s essential that any client with leases considers developing an implementation plan sooner rather than later. Because your firm will be more frequently interacting with clients in the next few months, it’s a perfect time to bring the new lease standard into the conversation.
In this blog, we’ll offer suggestions for having these discussions in conjunction with your assurance work to help you best prepare your clients for this significant change.
FASB Amends the New Lease Standard
On July 30, 2018, the FASB issued a greatly anticipated ASU related to the new lease standard. ASU 2018-11, Leases (Topic 842), Targeted Improvements, has two provisions that are intended to make transition to the new lease standard easier and less costly. One is an additional transition method, providing transition relief that will be of great interest to lessees and lessors. The other provides a new practical expedient for lessors in their identification and separation of lease components.
How the New Lease Standard Affects Accounting for Common Area Maintenance (CAM)
The new lease standard, ASC 842, changes the treatment of common area maintenance (CAM) within a real estate lease contract. Many real estate leases include some form of CAM, such as cleaning a building lobby, snow removal, landscaping, or janitorial services. Here are some things you need to know about CAM, including what is changing and a few practical examples.
What Can CPA Firms Do Now To Help Clients With Policy Decisions in the New Lease Standard?
Policy elections that must be made under the new lease accounting standard are a critical part of implementation planning. They impact your clients’ future accounting and financial statement disclosures and your clients may not have even considered them yet. For example:
