Canada’s CAs have announced guidance for a key metric of income trusts, that of distributable cash. The term ‘distributable cash’ generally refers to the cash that an income trust could potentially distribute to unit holders. Investors use this information when assessing the entity’s ability to fund future distributions and to help value their investments. But [...]

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In Canada, the Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) has already taken the first steps of convergence with international standards by outlining the plan under which publicly accountable enterprises will transition completely to IFRS. The change will occur over the next 5 years, and the Board expects the changeover process to be complete by fiscal years beginning [...]

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The Canadian Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) has finalized some new sections of the Handbook which include guidance on accounting for financial instruments. Financial instruments include investments, hedges, derivatives, and loans and receivables. The Canadian standard attempts to harmonize our GAAP in a way with FASB Statement 133, “Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities,” and [...]

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The Scotsman: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland will tell high-powered US financiers at a conference in New York that individual judgment should play a bigger role than strict adherence to a rule book. Ah, this old classic. Once again the rules-based US system is coming under attack by external sources, this time from [...]

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Since the last one went so well, and since there have been many posts this week on my fellow accountant blogs that I’d like to highlight, here’s another quick round-up of three interesting nuggets: Dan Meyer of Tick Marks talks about a new standard in the US called FIN 48, which requires companies making assumptions [...]

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