The new lease accounting standards will require some extra time and work for many companies as they race to satisfy the new requirements.
In these new rules, two leases (finance and operating) will be required on the balance sheets.
CFO sums it up this way:
Under the new guidance, an arrangement contains a lease only when the arrangement conveys the right to control the use of an identified asset. That’s a change from legacy guidance, under which an arrangement can contain a lease even without such a right if the customer takes substantially all of the output from the lease over the term of the arrangement.
In addition to the lack of bright lines used under legacy guidance, FASB added a new criterion that focuses on assets that have a specialized nature with no alternative use at the expiration of a lease. That’s important, as it may modify the lease’s legacy classification.
As 2018 progresses, your business will want to develop procedures for gathering and documenting the wide array of leases kept by your company. These procedures will need to be efficient, as technologically advanced as possible, and centralized in order to be sustainable and accurate.
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