At its January 9, 2002 , following a rash of well-publicized complaints about the slowness of the accounting standard-setting process, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) decided to forge ahead on three new frontiers. It tentatively agreed to:

1. Issue for public comment a prospectus for a major project to update the concepts and principles of revenue recognition [1].

2. Undertake a narrowly-defined project on disclosures about intangibles [2] not recognized in financial statements.

3. Refine and prioritize a whole smorgasbord of initiatives designed to modernize accounting literature and address the issue of standards overload [3].

In a grueling session described by FASB Chairman Ed Jenkins as the "first full-day meeting in four and a half years," FASB Board members reviewed detailed proposals and alternatives for potential projects on all three frontiers.

Despite some initial reluctance to approve projects that were not as fully-researched or crisply-articulated as desired, the prevailing sentiment at the end of the day was one of realism and a need to move forward. As one Board member said in casting his vote on the intangibles project, "At this point, something is better than nothing."

Learn more about these projects [4] and other potential initiatives that the FASB Board may be considering.