Improving business reporting: wheels in motion.

How would you improve business reporting--does it even need improvement? The Financial Accounting Standards Board wants to hear from you. The FASB's invitation to comment, Recommendations of the AICPA Special Committee on Financial Reporting and the Association for Investment Management and Research, provides an opportunity for users and preparers of business information, CPA public practitioners and academics to influence the future of business reporting. The comment deadline is July 31.

The American Institute of CPAs financial reporting coordinating committee, the follow-up body to the special committee (the Jenkins committee), is taking steps to ensure that standard setters continue to formally consider the special committee's recommendations. The special committee identified the need for a comprehensive model of business reporting that includes the types and timing of information users need to value and assess the risk of their investments. The coordinating committee is developing a symposium, to be held this fall, to address the need for such a comprehensive business reporting model.

Jerry Weygandt, coordinating committee chair, says the FASB's invitation to comment "should be given the highest priority by all those involved with business reporting. Its importance should not be underestimated, because it deals with issues that are at the heart of efficient and fair allocation of capital in this country."

To obtain one free copy of the invitation to comment (product code ITC15), write to the FASB Order Department, 401 Merritt 7, P.O. Box 5116, Norwalk, Connecticut 06856-5116; or telephone the FASB at [phone], ext. 555.

To obtain one free copy of the special committee's report, Improving Business Reporting--A Customer Focus, call the AICPA order department, [phone]; fax, [phone]. There is a summary report (product no. 019305JA) and a comprehensive report (product no. 019303JA). The report also is available on the AICPA Accountants Forum, in the Accounting Library, and through the Internet at http://www.rutgers.edu/ accounting/raw/aicpa/index.htm. To obtain one free copy of AIMR's report, Financial Reporting in the 1990s and Beyond, call AIMR at [phone].