The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) update at the Foundation for Accounting Education’s 47th Annual Nonprofit Conference on Jan. 16 gave a thorough look at the board's current agenda and the projects that are specifically affecting exempt organizations. 

The presentation was titled "Staying Ahead in this Period of Relative Calm.” "This is a message that I have been trying to convey over the last couple of years," said presenter Jeffrey D. Mechanick, a senior project advisor for not-for-profit entities and chair of FASB’s not-for-profit advisory committee. "What that means, especially for not-for-profit organizations, is that there are no big and hairy standards that need to be implemented in the next couple of years. For that matter, there are no current projects that could result in new standards affecting non-profit organizations, rather there are some minor targeted improvements." 

Mechanick gave an overview of the FASB's current agenda comprising 14 projects under the technical agenda, seven projects under the research agenda and two projects in post-implementation review. The projects on the technical agenda are those that the FASB is actively considering changes to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Meanwhile, the research agenda represents the pipeline of potential projects that can go into the technical agenda, although some may never make it through. Of those 14 technical projects, Mechanick said that seven can affect not-for-profit organizations including accounting for and disclosure of software costs, accounting for debit exchanges and accounting for environmental credit programs. 

Mechanick said that the most important item in the research agenda is the agenda consultation. An invitation to comment (ITC) on the board's future standard-setting agenda was released on Jan. 3. The deadline for providing feedback is June 30. Mechanick said that "the most important research project that you ought to be aware of is our agenda consultation. The last time we did this type of public outreach about which [topic] should go on the agenda was back in 2021 and what we heard from that helped shape our agenda for the past few years."  

Aside from the agenda consultation, another key item in the research agenda is the accounting for and disclosure of intangibles, which began as a much broader project but has been broken off into separate parts. These include modernizing the software guidance and environmental credits. "This is looking at things like research and development and some other intangibles where the FASB has done work on and off over the years and non-completed projects. What we are trying to do is get ideas as to are these things we should be doing more on either on accounting or disclosure."