FASB project to help clarify revenue recognition standards. (Assurance Forum)

Accounting Today, June, 2002 by Glenn Cheney

NORWALK, CONN. -- Responding to an increasingly piecemeal jumble of standards relating to revenue recognition, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has taken on a broad-reaching project that aims to clarify the accounting behind one of the most crucial numbers in financial statements.

"This is a big project," said L. Todd Johnson, FASB senior project manager. "Revenue is a big number. Everybody's got revenue, and it's usually the biggest number in financial statements. It's also the single largest category in causes for reasons of restatements. Revenue measures and revenue growth are important things to analysts. It's an important number that cuts across industries."

Johnson said that the first big concerns over concepts in revenue came during the...