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 6, 2013 FASB Board Meeting

Revenue Recognition. The Board met to discuss its compliance with the due process requirements to issue a final Accounting Standards Update on revenue, including a consideration of the expected costs and benefits. The Board directed the staff to draft a final Update for vote by written ballot.

Next Steps

This meeting marks the completion of the Board´s discussions on revenue. The staff will continue drafting the final Update.


Going Concern.The Board discussed a summary of the feedback received through comments letters on the Proposed Accounting Standards Update, Presentation of Financial Statements (Topic 205): Disclosure of Uncertainties about an Entity´s Going Concern Presumption. The summary is available on the Going Concern project page of the FASB website.

The Board decided to continue with the project and discussed a plan for redeliberation, which will include the following issues for the Board to either redeliberate or reaffirm:

1. Initial disclosure threshold including information to be assessed
2. Consideration of management´s plans outside the ordinary course of business
3. Disclosure content
4. 24-month assessment period
5. Substantial doubt threshold
6. Applicability of substantial doubt to non-SEC filers.

Next Steps

The Board directed the staff to continue performing outreach with various stakeholders about the issues for redeliberations. The Board expects to begin redeliberations in January 2014.


Disclosure Framework: Board´s Decision Process. The Board continued discussing its approach for deciding whether an annual disclosure should also be required for interim reporting periods. It also discussed whether employee benefit plan financial statements should be included in the scope of the Board´s decision process.

The Board made the following decisions:

1. The Board decided which indicators should be used to assist the Board in evaluating whether an annual disclosure should also be required for interim reporting periods.
2. Employee benefit plans should not be within the scope of the Board´s decision process. Rather, the Board acknowledged that, when developing standards for disclosure, special consideration should be given to whether those standards apply to employee benefit plans.

The Board directed the staff to draft, for vote by written ballot, an Exposure Draft that would add a new chapter regarding disclosures to FASB Concepts Statement No. 8, Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting. The comment period would be at least four months from the Exposure Draft´s date of issuance and would not end earlier than May 15, 2014.