GAAP Was Authored by Two

¶ … GAAP was authored by two professors of accounting. Craig D. Shoulders, Ph.D., is a professor of accounting at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and head of the Accounting technology Department at that university. Robert J. Freeman, CPA, Ph.D., is the distinguished professor of accounting at Texas Tech University. Dr. Freeman served on the Accounting Standards Board (GASB) from 1990-2000, and served as Vice Chairman during 1998-2000 and has published several books with Dr. Shoulders previous to the article of interest.

Statement of purpose: The authors have extensive experience with the hierarchy of Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) with Dr. Freeman serving on its board earlier in his career. The intent of the article is to first define the hierarchy of GASB statements and their priority relative to Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the prioritization of GASB technical bulletins specifically detailing industry audit and accounting guides, and also defining the AICPA AcSec practice bulletins after they have been approved by the GASB board. As Dr. Freeman is an author of Implementation Guides previously, there in significant coverage of the development, structured, precedence of, and role of these in the context of defining auditing guidelines.

The authors also provide insights into why Implementation Guides are subordinate to GASB statements and technical bulletins, and successfully provide frameworks for allowing audits to interpret the guides, statements and bulletins in the context of interpreting financial statements. The authors also make the point several times throughout the article that accountants, audits and financial professionals have the responsibility to stay current on the differences that arise between each of guides, bulletins and implementation guides. The authors also point out that in the hierarchy of the GASB statements, interpretations, technical bulletins and the role of consensus approvals of GASB also need to be seen as the development of future Implementation Guide recommendations for future years as well. In summary, the authors provide an excellent overview of how the hierarchy of GASB statements relate to the Implementation Guides produced.