The Essentials of Finance and Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER FOURGenerally AcceptedAccounting Principles:A Review and Update

The role of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was briefly described in the introduction. This is a research organization, made up primarily of accountants. The FASB, along with the entire accounting profession, has, over time, developed a series of rules called generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). In addition, the FASB publishes what are called FASB Bulletins. These are a series of more than one hundred publications that describe what corporate reporting methodologies should be. Most of these methodologies have been adopted and are now incorporated into accounting practice. A broad analogy is that the GAAP rules are the basic constitution and the ...