SUMMARY OF BOARD DECISIONS

Summary of Board decisions are provided for the information and convenience of constituents who want to follow the Board´s deliberations. All of the conclusions reported are tentative and may be changed at future Board meetings. Decisions are included in an Exposure Draft for formal comment only after a formal written ballot. Decisions in an Exposure Draft may be (and often are) changed in redeliberations based on information provided to the Board in comment letters, at public roundtable discussions, and through other communication channels. Decisions become final only after a formal written ballot to issue an Accounting Standards Update.

November 9, 2011 FASB Board Meeting (Revised 11/10/11)

Agenda decision: not-for-profit financial reporting.  The Board discussed whether to add one or more projects to its agenda to improve the existing standards for presentation of financial statements and related disclosures for not-for-profit entities. After considering input and advice from Board members, the FASB´s Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee, and others, the Chairman decided to add two agenda projects—a standards-setting project and a research project.

The standards-setting project will reexamine existing standards for financial statement presentation by not-for-profit entities, focusing on improving:
  1. Net asset classification requirements
     
  2. Information provided in financial statements and notes about liquidity, financial performance, and cash flows.
The research project will study communications other than financial statements that not-for-profit entities use to tell their financial story. The FASB staff will, for example, review existing best practices followed by not-for-profit entities to discern how such communications enhance the understanding of donors, creditors, and other stakeholders about the financial health and performance of the organization and seek volunteers to experiment with possible communication techniques. Through this effort, the Board expects to learn whether educational or standard-setting efforts can contribute to promoting such other effective means of communication.