On July 1, 2009, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is instituting a major change in the way accounting standards are organized. On that date, the FASB Accounting Standards Codification (FASB Codification) will become the single official source of authoritative, nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (U.S. GAAP). After that date, only one level of authoritative U.S. GAAP will exist, other than guidance issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All other literature will be nonauthoritative.

As part of its educational mission, the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF), the oversight and administrative body of the FASB, in a joint initiative with the American Accounting Association (AAA), will provide faculty and students in accounting programs at post-secondary academic institutions with the Professional View of the online FASB Codification.

Accounting Program Access—No Cost to Individual Faculty or Students
The Professional View of the FASB Codification will be accessible at no cost to individual faculty and students, through the AAA's Academic Access program, available to Registered Accounting Programs. The Professional View will provide advanced search functions with special utilities to assist in the navigation of content, representing the fully functional view of the FASB Codification that will be used by auditors, financial analysts, investors, and preparers of financial statements. All of the features that have been available with the verification version currently on the ,a href="http://asc.fasb.org" target="_blank">FASB Web site are included with the Professional View.

AAA Academic Access
The AAA will provide direct services to accounting departments through its Academic Access program; issuing authentication credentials for faculty and students through Registered Accounting Programs, at a low annual institutional fee of $150. Information about this program is available on the AAA Web site.