Management decision making FASB

The FASB hopes that the feedback from private company stakeholders, including preparers of private company financial statements and large and small accounting firms, will be beneficial to the initiative.

"We hope that accounting firms will convey to their private company clients that this is an effort to make things more user-friendly while still giving lenders and investors the information they need about private companies, " Christine Klimek, senior manager of media relations and executive communications for the FASB, told AccountingWEB. "The end goal is always to improve financial reporting and to provide information that is relevant to the users of private company financial statements."

Initial Invitation to Comment

1. What should the framework look like?
2. What factors should differentiate a private company from a public company?
3. What other criteria should be included in the framework?

"The idea is not to create two sets of GAAP. The intent is to consider private company constituent feedback in identifying alternatives for private companies within US GAAP, " Klimek says.

According to Pappas, the FASB received fifty-seven responses – mostly from representatives of private companies, banking and financial institutions, and large and small accounting firms – during the initial invitation to comment.

What Feedback Is the FASB Looking to Receive?

There are five key questions that the FASB and the PCC are asking private company stakeholders to consider and answer during the 2013 Invitation to Comment: