TSCPA News

FASB Improves Collaborative Arrangement Accounting Rules

November 5, 2018

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently issued an Accounting Standards Update (ASU) that clarifies the interaction between the guidance for certain collaborative arrangements and the Revenue Recognition financial accounting and reporting standard.

A collaborative arrangement is a contractual arrangement under which two or more parties actively participate in a joint operating activity and are exposed to significant risks and rewards that depend on the activity’s commercial success. The ASU provides guidance on how to assess whether certain transactions between collaborative arrangement participants should be accounted for within the revenue recognition standard.

The ASU also provides more comparability in the presentation of revenue for certain transactions between collaborative arrangement participants. It accomplishes this by allowing organizations to only present units of account in collaborative arrangements that are within the scope of the revenue recognition standard together with revenue accounted for under the revenue recognition standard. The parts of the collaborative arrangement that are not in the scope of the revenue recognition standard should be presented separately from revenue accounted for under the revenue recognition standard.

For public companies, the amendments in this ASU are effective for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2019, and interim periods within those fiscal years. For all other organizations, the amendments are effective for fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2020, and interim periods within fiscal years beginning after Dec. 15, 2021. Early adoption is permitted.

More information about the ASU is available at www.fasb.org.