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Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m here with Miriam Rouziek, an Audit Manager and a member of the PKF Texas SEC team. Miriam, welcome to the Playbook.

Miriam: Thank you for having me, Jen.

Jen: As a member of the SEC team I know you handle comment letters for our clients and work with them on those. What trends are you seeing coming from the SEC in regard to those letters?

Miriam: We’ve noticed a steady decline in SEC comment letters over the years. Since 2018, there’s been a steady decline of about 25%, which is comparable to the decline we saw in 2017. The comment letters are going to be focused on revenue recognition, coming up soon, since the new guidance has been implemented for about a year with the SEC companies.

The majority of comment letters are still going to be focused on larger companies, usually with a market cap of $700,000,000 or more. Those are your larger and more highly accelerated filers who have an accelerated due date – usually in February. These companies are going to have the majority of comment letters. Smaller companies, like the ones PKF handles, are usually going to have a smaller portion of the comment letters, and especially in more technical areas, they’re not going to see as many comment letters on those.

Jen: If a company receives one of these comment letters, they should call you guys, right?

Miriam: Correct. Usually, they should call us or call their attorney, who handles their SEC filings. We can have meetings with the SEC attorney and with the client, and we will be able to talk them through the process, talk them through the comments that the SEC has and any issues they have with the process, helping them figure out what they need to do. Most companies think that the first thing they need to do is call the SEC and have a restatement of their financial statements, but that’s not actually true. Most of the SEC comments are usually geared towards requesting more information, walking the SEC through the disclosures and the thought process of the company.

Jen: Perfect. Well, I think we’ll have to get you back to talk a little bit more. Can we get you back?

Miriam: Absolutely.

Jen: Awesome. For more about this topic, visit pkftexas.com/SECDesk. This has been another Thought Leader Production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook. Tune in next week for another chapter.

Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m back with Ryan Istre, an Audit Director and a member of the PKF Texas SEC team. Ryan, welcome back to the Playbook.

Ryan: Thanks for having me, Jen.

Jen: So, I’ve heard that the SEC has made some amendments about the definition of a smaller reporting company. What do these companies need to know?

Ryan: The SEC is in process of expanding the definition of what a small reporting company is. The way a public company determines whether it’s a smaller reporting company is at June 30th of each year, it has to calculate its public float. Public float means how many common shares does the company have outstanding multiplied by the trading price of the shares on that date. Historically $75 million was the cutoff, so if a company’s public float was less than $75 million, it was considered a smaller reporting company. So, the changes that the SEC has made has increased the amount of public float to $250 million, so a lot more companies are going to fall under the definition of a smaller reporting company.

Jen: So, if they’re not actively traded, what if there’s no public float? How do they determine that?

Ryan: That’s a good question. The SEC has also included in the definition of a smaller company a smaller reporting company with no public float annual revenues less than $100 million.

Jen: Okay. Are there any benefits to this to smaller reporting companies?

Ryan: Definitely. In normal public company filings for accelerated filers, you have to include three years of historical financial statement – two years of balance sheets, three years of income statements. And in smaller reporting company rules, you only have to include two years of historical income statements. That doesn’t sound like a lot that they’re dropping off from the requirements, however, in each of the financial statement footnotes and all of the sections of the NDNA, for example, anything under 10 K, because of the amount of disclosures necessary for public companies, dropping off an entire year is actually…

Jen: That’s huge.

Ryan: Definitely, definitely. It’s a big help. The SEC staff actually assumed that about 960 filers will be able to benefit from these expanded rules of smaller reporting companies.

Jen: That’s great. We’ll get you back to talk about it a little bit more.

Ryan: Sure.

Jen: Thank you. For more about this topic, visit PKFTexas.com/SECdesk. This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook. Tune in next week for another chapter.

Jen: This is the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Jen Lemanski, and I’m here today with Ryan Istre, an audit director and a member of the PKF Texas SEC team. Ryan, welcome back to the Playbook.

Ryan: Thanks, Jen. Appreciate it.

Jen: So, I’ve heard FASB is making some changes to share-based payment accounting. What do public companies need to know about this?

Ryan: Changes to the share-based payment accounting is happening pretty soon. A lot of companies will issue share-based payments to some of their employees, sometimes they’ll issue it to some of their consultants, and in the past, the accounting for those two may differ significantly.

Jen: It seems like that would be a little bit confusing to companies.

Ryan: It could be. The FASB issued this new standard to try to simplify the problem of divergent accounting. Now, one of the items, for example, that’s going to change with the new rules is that the point in time when you have to measure and the amount that you have to measure the compensation at, was different if it was a non-employee versus an employee. And historically it was at the commitment date, and now it’s going to be at the grant date of the actual share-based payment, so that’s going to bring the two in line and make it a little bit simpler for companies to apply.

Jen: Sounds good. Now when is this actually going to be effective?

Ryan: For most public companies, it’s going to be effective starting January 1, 2019, but an earlier option is permitted.

Jen: And what do they need to do to get ready for that?

Ryan: They just need to assess how much share-based payments they issue to non-employees and determine whether it benefits them to early adopt or to wait until the normal adoption date.

Jen: Perfect, sounds good. Well, we’ll get you back to talk about some public company information.

Ryan: Sure.

Jen: For more about this topic, visit PKFTexas.com/SECdesk. This has been another Thought Leader production brought to you by PKF Texas The Entrepreneur’s Playbook. Tune in next week for another chapter.