Today’s Accounting Practices

On September 28, 1998, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Arthur Levitt sounded the call to arms in the financial community. Levitt asked for, immediate and coordinated action… to assure credibility and transparency of financial reporting. Levitt’s speech emphasized the importance of clear financial reporting to those gathered at New York University. Reporting which has bowed to the pressures and tricks of earnings management. Levitt specifically addresses five of the most popular tricks used by firms to smooth earnings. Secondly, Levitt outlines an eight part action plan to recover the integrity of financial reporting in the U.S. market place. What are the basic objectives of financial reporting? Generally accepted accounting principles provide information that identifies, measures, and communicates financial information about economic entities to reasonably knowledgeable users. Information that is a source of decision making for a wide array of users, most importantly, by investors and creditors. Investors and creditors who are responsible for effective allocation of capital in our economy. If financial reporting becomes obscure and indecipherable, society loses the benefits of effective capital allocation. Nothing illustrates the importance of transparent information better than the pre-1930’s era of anything goes accounting. An era that left a chasm of misinformation in the market. A chasm that was a contributing factor to the market collapse of 1929 and the years of economic depression. An entire society suffered the repercussions of misinformation. Families, and retirees depend on the credibility of financial reporting for their futures and livelihoods. Levitt describes financial reporting as, a bond between the company and the investor which if damaged can have disastrous, long-lasting consequences. Once again, the bond is being tested. Tested by a financial community fixated on consensus earnings estimates. The pressure to achieve consensus estimates has never been so intense. The market demands consistency and punishes those who come up short. Eric Benhamou, former CEO of 3COM Corporation, learned this hard lesson over a few short weeks in 1996. Benhamou and shareholders lost $7 billion in market value when 3COM failed to achieve expectations. The pressures are a tangled web of expectations, and conflicts of interest which Levitt describes as almost self-perpetuating. With pressures mounting, the answer from U.S. managers has been earnings management with a mix of managed expectations. March of 1997 Fortune magazine reported that for an unprecedented sixteen consecutive quarters, more S&P 500 companies have beat the consensus earnings estimate than missed them. The sign of a quickly growing economy and a measure of the importance the market has placed on consensus earnings estimates. The singular emphasis on earnings growth by investors has opened the door to earnings management solutions. Solutions that are further being reinforced to managers by market forces and compensation plans. Primarily, managers jobs depend on their ability to build stockholder equity, and ever more importantly their own compensation. A growing number of CEO’s are receiving

greater percentages of their compensation as stock options. A very personal incentive for executive achievement of consensus earnings estimates. Companies are not the only ones to feel the squeeze. Analysts are being pressured by large institutional investors and companies seeking to manage expectations. Everyone is seeking the win. Auditors are being accused of being out to lunch, with the clients. Many accounting firms are coming under scrutiny as some of their clients are being investigated by the SEC for irregularities in their practice of accounting. Cendant and Sunbeam both left accounting giant Arthur Anderson holding a big ol’bag full of unreported accounting irregularities. Auditors from BDO Seidman addressed issues of GAAP with Thing New Ideas company. The Changes were made and BDO was replace for no specific reason. Herb Greenberg calls the episode, A reminder that the company being audited also pays the auditors’ bill. The Kind of conflict of interests that leads us to question the idea of how independent the auditors are. All of these pressures allow questionable accounting practices to obfuscate the reporting process. Generally accepted accounting principles are intended to be a guide, not a procedure. They have been developed with intended flexibility so as not to hinder the advancement of new and innovative business practice. Flexibility that has left plenty of room for companies to stretch the boundaries of GAAP. Levitt focus’s on five of the most widespread techniques used to deliver added flexibility. Big Bath restructuring charges, creative acquisition accounting, Cookie Jar reserves, Immaterial misapplications of accounting principles and the premature recognition of revenues. These