Standards board changes subscription accounting rules, Apple CPAs drunk with power

We’d heard Apple was pushing the Financial Accounting Standards Board to change the rules by which Cupertino’s accountants reported iPhone and Apple TV revenue, and it looks like the effort was successful. The new rules allow Apple (and other companies like Palm) to report revenues on products that bundle hardware and software all at once, instead of parceling out the revenue over time using subscription accounting to enable free software upgrades. For investors, that means Apple’s quarterly earnings reports will more accurately reflect the state of the company’s cash flow, but we’re more interested to find out if this means iPod touch OS updates will be free now, since the previous rationale for charging was that iPod revenue wasn’t recorded using subscription accounting. We’ve got a feeling Apple’s all too happy to take your $4.95, but we can hope, right?

[Via MacRumors]

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets

Standards board changes subscription accounting rules, Apple CPAs drunk with power originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This post is tagged: accounting, fasb, Finance, Financial, legal, palm, sec, subscription accounting, SubscriptionAccounting