FASB Accounting Standards Codification

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Help Page - Pending Content

The FASB Accounting Standards Codification™ provides an alert when content will change as a result of new standards. Most such changes have an effective date and a transition period. In order to make users aware of such changes while research in the FASB Accounting Standards Codification™ (Codification), the FASB includes an alert in the Codification with blue "Pending Content" header as follows:

/images/pending-content.gif

Tutorial

Click here to view the Pending Content tutorial.

Pending Content

The Pending Content box includes the following:

  1. A very high-level idea of the earliest transition date
  2. A link to the related transition guidance
  3. The content that will be effective based on the related transition guidance. This content will replace the current content as described below.


Removal of Pending Content

Because different entities have different reporting period dates, the Pending Content box must stay in place for a period of time sufficient for all entities. As a result, it may appear in the Codification after some entities have already adopted it. For example, assume that a change has an effective date for financial statements with periods beginning after December 15, 20X1. That change would begin to be applied on December 16, 20X1 for an entity with a reporting period beginning December 16. However, an entity with a reporting period beginning on December 15 would not need to begin applying the change until December 15, 20X2. So in this case, a difference of one day can result in an effective date that differs by one year.

In order to ensure that the Pending Content box is available to users throughout all entire reporting periods, the Pending Content box will remain in place for six months beyond the last reporting period end date that can adopt the change. So, continuing with the above example, the entity with the reporting period beginning on December 15, 20X2 would end on December 14, 20X3. Including an additional six months would result in the Pending Content box appearing in the Codification until June 15, 20X4, at which point its contents would replace the current contents of the paragraph and the Pending Content box would be removed.

The contents of the pending content box will replace the current content. At the same time, the transition paragraph in Section 65 will be removed. All previous versions are accessible with the Archive feature.