(Text for those without flash or javascript) Fulcrum's professionals are experienced CPAs, MBAs, ASAs, CFAs, affiliated professors and industry specialists Our expertise encompasses damages analysis, lost profit studies, business and intangible asset valuations, appraisals, fraud investigations, statistics, forensic economic analysis, royalty audits, strategic and market assessments, computer forensics, electronic discovery and analysis of computer data.

Firm Overview
Video

Fulcrum Library

Financial Reporting

Library Sections:

Torturing ourselves with repetition and complexity in accounting disclosure

Aptly entitled “Disclosure Overload and Complexity: Hidden in Plain Sight”, a recent report describes the problem sources and possible cures.

Goodwill Impairement Tests Become Easier

The FASB amended guidance that significantly simplifies current procedures. We also provide a background primer on what is goodwill and how it is treated for accounting purposes.

Revised Contingency Accounting Rules Delayed Again

For the second time, the defense bar’s protests derail disclosure expansions.

Affluent Should Consider Roth Conversions

Starting in 2010, affluent taxpayers can convert assets from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. Many affluent taxpayers should take advantage of this.

Examiner Fingers Lehman’s Management And Outside Auditor For Serious Accounting Misreporting

Lehman Brothers is the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Last week’s report by a U.S. bankruptcy examiner blames senior executives and auditor Ernst & Young for manipulating its balance sheet, inflating the value of its assets, and withholding information from the board.

U.S. Private Companies Now Have Additional Accounting Alternatives

Although often discussed, U.S. GAAP has not had separate financial reporting standards for smaller companies. This changed last week. The new rules are dramatically simpler and shorter. But, companies adopting the new standards will also need to make other changes in how certain transactions are treated.

FASB Proposes New Revenue Rules As Part Of Dramatic Change To Principles-Based Worldwide Standards

We summarize the industries and business practices that will be affected.

FASB Toughens Off-Balance-Sheet Accounting

An important accounting rule change will be finalized this month that will result in enormous liabilities being recorded by those entities previously using off-balance-sheet financing, and hidden losses to be recorded.

GAO Admits The Big 4 Competition Problem, But Fails To Suggest Any Improvement

The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a new report on the state of accounting competition. In the large firm segment, everyone acknowledges that insufficient competitive alternatives exist. Although improvements are challenging, the GAO again missed an opportunity to address mandatory auditor rotation as a needed reform to our capital markets.

GAAP Reorganization Will Cause Short-Term Frustration, But Should Improve Research Capabilities

Accounting and legal professionals will need to re-learn everything they know about how U.S. GAAP is documented, updated, referenced, and accessed.

Merger and Acquisitions Accounting For Lawsuit Contingencies Revoked

An accounting pronouncement highly criticized by the legal profession was formally revoked this month, putting back in place rules that the lawyers have known for years.

Significant New Litigation Disclosures Proposed

Most defendants limit their financial statement disclosures by claiming the amount of the possible loss can not be estimated. The FASB wants to change this by proposing disclosures regarding maximum loss amounts, along with a long list of other items.

SEC Allows Foreign Accounting Standards In The U.S.

Last week, the SEC approved the use of foreign accounting standards without the need to reconcile or explain differences with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. This is likely the first step in an inevitable change of allowing all U.S. companies to elect which reporting rules they wish to follow, and then allowing only the international rules. We provide the details, including a table of the most important differences.

New Accounting Rule Requires Lawyer Input

No later than December 31, 2005, companies with future environmental cleanup obligations may (depending upon the practices previously adopted) face a major change.

The FASB's Gift to the IRS

At first blush, the pronouncement seems simple, fair, and straightforward, but it will have a huge unintended consequence. The pronouncement requires that, starting in 2007, corporations that took aggressive tax positions need to report this to the IRS. The IRS will certainly follow up with a tax bill.

How Principles-Based Accounting Affects Lawyers

In late July 2003 the Securities and Exchange Commission released a staff study required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The study strongly recommends that accounting standards be developed using a principles-based approach. Although the full impact will take years to occur, the overall result should be profound.