In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a final standard on revenue from contracts with customers. The new standard sets forth a single comprehensive model for recognizing and reporting revenue. The new standard is effective for the Company in its fiscal year 2018 and permits the use of either a retrospective or a cumulative effect transition method. The Company is evaluating the effect of the new standard on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures, and plans to use the retrospective transition method.
In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a final standard on accounting for leases. The new standard is effective for the Company in fiscal 2019 and requires most leases to be recorded on the balance sheet. The Company is evaluating the effect of the new standard on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures and accounting systems.
In March 2016, FASB issued a new standard that changes the accounting for share-based payments. The standard is effective for the Company in fiscal 2017. It simplifies several aspects of accounting for share-based payments, including the accounting for income taxes, forfeitures, and classification in the statement of cash flows. Under the new standard, excess tax benefits on the exercise of stock options currently credited to equity will reduce the current tax provision, potentially creating volatility in the Company’s effective tax rate. The Company cannot reliably predict the amount of excess tax benefit from exercise of stock options that will reduce the tax provision in 2017 because it depends on the number and value of options to be exercised. Excess tax benefit recorded in additional paid-in capital totaled $6.9 million in 2016, and averaged $4.3 million per year since 2006. The effect of adopting the simplified method of accounting for forfeitures will not be significant.
About New Standards Disclosures
New accounting standards disclosures describe recently adopted pronouncements and those not yet effective, along with management's assessment of their expected impact. This section provides an early warning system for upcoming changes to how a company reports its financial results, often years before the new rules take effect.
Key signals: when management describes a not-yet-adopted standard's impact as "material" or "still being evaluated," it signals potential significant changes to reported metrics upon adoption. Watch for standards that affect a company's core operations — for example, revenue recognition changes for software companies or lease accounting changes for retailers with large store footprints. The transition method chosen (full retrospective versus modified retrospective) affects comparability with prior periods. Companies that delay adoption to the latest permitted date may be struggling with implementation complexity. Compare the disclosed impact assessments against peers in the same industry to gauge whether management's expectations are reasonable.