AICPA NATIONAL ISSUES

Addressing the Needs of Private-Sector Companies

This summer, the Rhode Island Society of CPAs, along with 32 other state CPA organizations formally urged the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) to create a new board to draft differential standards in order to address the needs of the private-company sector.

The AICPA reported that the 33 groups have either passed resolutions or written letters to the FAF in favor of the new board. Those organizations represent more than 275,000 CPAs from across the country.

“The message is clear; FAF must do this now or run the risk of missing our best opportunity to make Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) relevant for private companies,” said Barry Melancon, president and CEO of the American Institute of CPAs.

Streamlining U.S. GAAP to better serve private companies and users of their financial statements has been long discussed, as many in the industry believe the nation’s generally accepted accounting principles have become too complex and a financial burden to privately-held businesses.

In October of 2010, the Governing Council of the AICPA adopted a resolution supporting the work of a panel that recommended the creation of a separate accounting standards board. The “blue ribbon panel” was formed in 2009 by the AICPA, the FAF and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). The group was responsible for helping to develop a path for setting accounting standards that meet the needs for private companies.

In other national accounting news, starting in the fourth quarter of this year U.S. CPA exam scores will be released earlier and on a more conventional schedule. According to the AICPA, the change marks a shift in the CPA Exam experience and “the strategies that prospective CPAs employ as they work toward passing the exam.”

Oliver Zhang, PhD, senior psychometrician at the AICPA, stated in a recent blog on the AICPA website that the quicker reporting of scores was due to the launch of a major upgrade to the CPA Exam in January known as CBT-e.

Zhang stated that since the shift from pencil-and-paper exams to the computerized format in 2004 the exam schedule became more flexible, including the ability to take it year-long and take one section of the exam at a time. Zhang said exam-takers have since been calling for faster scoring in order to better plan their next step in the process.

To learn more about the score release timeline visit AICPA.org.