The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has announced it support for the Global Accounting Alliance (GAA). This coalition of the world’s leading accounting bodies provide recommendations for improving financial reporting worldwide, including the recent report, "Getting to the heart of the issue – Can financial reporting be made simpler and more useful?"  
Our worldwide economies are becoming more and more interdependent. Barry Melancon, President and CEO of the AICPA states:
"As policymakers pursue a more coordinated, global approach to regulation and market support, we in the accounting profession are continuing a dialogue on how to reduce complexity in …read more

With a new administration in the Oval Office, accounting firms, corporations, and university accounting programs are all anxious to find out how quickly the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) will be adopted for US listed companies.
University of Dayton accounting professor and President of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research, Donna Street, doesn’t think US schools are moving quickly enough to turn out graduates with the skills needed in the new international accounting job market.
“Many business schools are not moving quickly enough to teach the international standards and equip accounting graduates with the knowledge they’ll need to be competitive.”
Although the …read more

Accounting rules have been in the news a lot lately. One in particular, the mark to market rule, has become something of a scapegoat for the current economic crisis. I thought we’d take a step back today and look at the purpose of accounting standards and their role in our free market economy.
Why Do We Need Accounting Standards and Where Do They Come From?
To ensure uniformity in financial statements, publicly traded companies must follow a set of rules known as the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Basically, GAAP is designed to help investors (including bankers) compare financial apples to …read more

In August the SEC proposed allowing some large American corporations to begin using international accounting standards as early as 2009, as well as requiring adoption by all American companies by the year 2016. However, the change in financial statement reporting could come sooner – as early as 2014 for large companies.
This move by the US to international accounting standards goes a long way toward establishing a unified set of world standards, simplifying the process of comparing companies for investors and bankers.
 
Who’s First to Adopt International Accounting Standards?
To be allowed to use the international standards early, a company must …read more