Coleman D. Ross

Additional Service to
Professional Organizations

NYSSANew York Society of Security Analysts

I was a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts from 1996 to 2007.  NYSSA, the largest of the local financial analyst societies and affiliates of the CFA Institute, promotes awareness and understanding of securities analysis, investing, and the operations of the securities markets.

Improved Corporate Reporting Committee

I was a member of NYSSA’s Improved Corporate Reporting Committee between 2004 and 2007 and previously from 1999 to 2001.  This committee closely follows issues and events affecting financial reporting, corporate disclosures, and accounting standards.  Its primary mission is to keep the membership of the NYSSA informed about those issues through speaker programs and conferences, including its annual Financial Reporting Conference.  The committee also selectively advocates specific positions on proposed new financial reporting standards before regulators and standard setters.

CFA InstituteCFA Institute

I joined the CFA Institute (then the Association for Investment Management and Research) in 1977, soon after I began my CFA studies.  The CFA Institute is the international membership organization for the investment profession that sets standards for education, ethics, and professional excellence.

CFA Comprehensive Business Reporting Model report
CFA Comprehensive Business Reporting Model report

FASB logo IASB logoThe CFA Centre for Financial Market Integrity was established by the CFA Institute as a distinct division to serve as its developer and proponent for policies, practices, and standards that improve the integrity of the global capital markets.  The CFA Centre developed A Comprehensive Business Reporting Model: Financial Reporting for Investors to improve financial information available to investors.  The model was unveiled at a joint meeting of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board in October 2005, following work of the CFA Centre with members of the CFA Institute’s Business Reporting Subcommittee and its Corporate Disclosure Policy Council.

I am working with Rebecca McEnally, the project director and Director of the Capital Markets Policy Group of the CFA Centre, to develop live data from published reports that illustrate the principles of the comprehensive business reporting model.  Those twelve principles are:

  • Preparing a company’s financial statements from the perspective of an investor
  • Using fair value information, considered to be the only information useful for financial decision-making
  • Determining recognition and disclosure in financial statements by the usefulness of the information to financial decision-making, not by measurement reliability alone.
  • Including the economic effect of all of a company’s activities in the financial statements
  • Determining materiality thresholds based on investors’ investment decisions
  • Choosing financial reporting methods without the influence of the effects of the methods
  • Recording all changes in net assets in the Statement of Changes in Net Assets Available to Common Shareholders, a single, new financial statement
  • Recognizing all changes in fair value of assets and liabilities in the statement as they occur
  • Presenting operating cash flows in the Cash Flow Statement on the direct method
  • Reporting and explaining changes affecting financial statements in detail, rather than in highly summarized categories
  • Reporting individual line items based upon the nature of the items, rather than by the function for which they are used (e.g., reporting costs of labor and raw materials individually rather than as part of cost of goods sold)
  • Disclosing all of the additional information that investors require to understand the items recognized in the financial statements, including how these items were measured and what risks they posed to the company.

FASB logoFinancial Accounting Standards Board

IASB logoThe Financial Accounting Standards Board establishes U.S. accounting and reporting standards through the issuance of statements, interpretations, staff positions, special reports, and consensuses of both the Emerging Issues Task Force and Derivative Instruments Group.  FASB is also working with the International Accounting Standards Board for the convergence of international standards and U.S. standards.

Working through the AICPA Implementations of FASB Statement No. 91 Task Force, I was involved in developing the guidance included in the FASB Special Report: A Guide to Implementation of Statement 91 on Accounting for Nonrefundable Fees and Costs Associated with Originating or Acquiring Loans and Initial Direct Costs of Leases: Questions and Answers.  My role in this and other accounting standard-setting is more fully described on the previous page.

Also, in April 2006, I performed a pre-issuance review of the FASB Invitation to Comment: Bifurcation of Insurance and Reinsurance Contracts for Financial Reporting.  The review was at the request of the FASB project manager prior to the May 2006 issuance of this FASB Invitation to Comment.  My role, while certainly not major, gave me an interesting insight into the thinking of the FASB on this important document.

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