Many of us have seen this slide before – but it highlight an important point. The people, processes and systems that either support…or are affected by…the revenue recognition cycle span throughout an organization. Therefore for many companies, the implementation of the new revenue standard will involve not just accounting and financial reporting resources, but also other groups throughout the organization. On the next few slides I will highlight a few of these areas.
Overall message – Transition requirements GREATLY complicate the implementation effort.
This slide includes transitions – when in presentation mode must be advanced to add effects
There are many reasons why a company might choose either the cumulative effect method or the retrospective method of adoption. Each company will need to consider its specific circumstances when making that decision. What I want to focus on today is the implications that those different methods of adoption may have on your implementation plan.
To start, let’s take a look at the cumulative effect method of adoption.
In the timeline on this slide we are assuming a 1/1/17 effective date.
1ST TRANSITION
Now the first thing that jumps out at you is the top row – reflected in pink – which illustrates the fact that calculating the cumulative effect will require companies to review historical accounting. For companies with longer term customer contracts, with deliverables being fulfilled over a period of time – perhaps multiple years – the population of contracts that are open as of the effective date may be larger, and may require a longer “look back” into historical periods in order to analyze the change in revenue under the new standard. On the slide we have represented this effort as roughly 2 ½ years, but in actuality the timeline will vary for each company.
This slide also illustrates in the second row that new systems and processes that enable the determination of revenue under the new standard will be required to be in place no later than the effective date.
2ND TRANSITION
Finally, the third row – in green – illustrates that the existing systems and process for legacy GAAP reporting will continue not just through the effective date…but all the way through the end of 2017 (again, for a calendar year company).
This dual reporting capability is necessary because the new standard will require a company to disclose – on a line by line basis – the impact of the new standard on its financial statements during the first year of adoption.
Now let’s contrast those requirements with the retrospective transition method. Under this method, on the effective date companies will begin reporting results for 2017 under the new standard, and also report prior periods as if the new standard had been applied during those periods.
3RD TRANSITION
This results in a dual reporting requirements for 2015 and 2016. This can be satisfied either by implementing a real-time dual reporting capability, or an effort after the fact to go back and calculate revenue under the new method. Most companies who desire to adopt retrospectively, and which face significant differences under the new standard, may want to implement their new reporting capability as soon as possible in order to avoid having to go back and recalculate revenue for 2015 and 2016 after the fact. The timing of when this dual reporting capability goes live will depend on individual facts and circumstances. In many cases, the extent of process and system changes may delay the new reporting capability to a later date. Nonetheless, most of the companies we have been speaking with that are leaning towards a retrospective approach desire to have the dual reporting capability in place as soon as possible.
4th TRANSITION
The dotted line reflects the fact that even under the retrospective method, during 2017 there will be requirement to disclose significant ways in which the “new” revenue recognition differs from “legacy” GAAP. This disclosure won’t be as in-depth as required under the cumulative effect method, but nonetheless may require some companies to maintain dual reporting capability through the first year of adoption.
5TH TRANSITION
The next thing that jumps out at you is the fact that – like the cumulative effect method – a cumulative effect calculation still needs to be performed under the retrospective method. The difference is in timing – as it is performed as of the beginning of the retrospective period. The extent to which historical periods need to be considered will depend on how far back open contracts extend
6th TRANSITION
Finally, I wanted to point out that the retrospective method of adoption could be complicated by the SEC’s 5 year reporting requirement under Regulation S-K. Unless the SEC provides an exception from its rule, then companies would need to apply the new standard to 2014 and 2013 in order to retrospectively adopt over the entire 5 year period.
b) Conclusion – What does this mean as you plan for implementation? Well without the option of adopting the standard prospectively – as we have had on most new revenue standards in the past – the implementation of this standard will become more complicated. Many companies I have been speaking with that expect significant changes to result from the standard are intrigued by the ability to adopt retrospectively. As you can see, the choice of transition method could impact the timing of your implementation – and influence your implementation strategy. So Companies will need to decide on their transition method early in the process. In addition, an early start to implementation will allow dual reporting capabilities to be introduced sooner, reducing the extent to which historical periods need to be reexamined.
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Overview
Main message is that we are seeing many companies who currently have a manual process for managing reallocation of consideration, now looking to automate that process as part of their implementation of the new standard. Whether by implementing an existing revenue automation tool, or by looking to the new ERP products.
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2 minutes
4 stages of standard implementation methodology
Assess
Design
Implement
Sustain
Timeline is illustrative only – intended to show the approach that companies might take depending on the level of impact to their revenue policies and processes
Some key points:
A low impact company will be able to wait until later than a high impact company to start the process
ALL companies will want to perform an assessment – even a company that believe they have no impact. This is important because while there are many companies that will fall into the LOW impact category, very few – perhaps none – will not be impacted at all.
An assessment would include a detailed analysis of revenue recognition policy against the new standard. That process likely would include some detailed contract reviews.
The timing of the assessment – indicated on the timeline by the light blue squares – could be delayed for lower impact companies.
High impact companies – including companies that have multi-year arrangements – and companies that might want to adopt retrospectively will need to start assessing the impact during 2013 in order to leave sufficient time for designing and implementing process and system changes that may be required to reach a sustainable, scalable solution.
The HIGH impact timeline indicate a sustainable solution should be in place by 2016. This would allow a company to tailor its process and systems so they could be leveraged to accumulate the information needed to perform the cumulative effect calculation. For a HIGH impact company with multi-year contracts, calculation of the cumulative effect adjustment will require reaching back even further than 1 year to obtain needed data…those companies will need to have a sutainable solution in place even earlier – or design an interim process for collecting needed information.
For retrospective adopters, the same issue exists…the sooner a sustainable solution can be put in place, then the less reliance that has to be placed on manual workaround to collect and analyze data.
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CRM: Customer Relationship Management
VSOE: Vendor Specific Objective evidence (for prices used)
ESP: Estimated Selling Price
SLA: Subledger accounting (a feature of Oracle eBusiness Suite Release 12)
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