In earlier articles in this series, we looked at topics where for certain industries, the accounting consequences of a framework change could be so severe that they might influence a preparer’s overall choice of framework. This has been based on the status quo, with standards in their current form as they would apply to 2015 accounts. But it behoves preparers to look forward too, particularly when they already know of changes that will be coming in.

Here we look at the accounting for leases. As the frameworks currently stand, the differences in lease accounting might be enough to cause annoyance and extra work, but not enough to have a likely effect on decision making.