FASB Explained. The good, the bad the confusing.
If you are in franchising you may have
heard the excitement about the Federal Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) decision to delay the revenue
recognition rule for one year. The International Franchise Association
(IFA) did a great job advocating for that.
Kudos, IFA!
You may be one of the many who are
clapping, but in the back of your mind thinking, wait - what is that
again?
Don’t worry, it’s not that simple to understand, but we
want to help you do it. Let’s break down the meaning and the value of
this FASB win for franchising.
First, let’s talk about what FASB did which caused the pain to the franchise community. FASB provided new guidance on their ASC 606 Revenue Recognition rule and set it to go into effect in the year ending December 31, 2019. That updated guidance changed how franchise systems are allowed to report revenue when they sell multiple unit licenses to a new franchisee.
For instance, if the new franchisee bought 3 locations, the rule made it so the franchise system could only report the revenue received for the first franchise in the first year and made it so the revenue for the additional licenses would have to be reported in the year those locations were opened.
Why is that a problem?
Well, instead of the money received
showing up as revenue on the income statement (money in), the funds for the
second and third location instead show up as a liability on the balance sheet
as deferred revenue. Those funds have to be recorded in that liability
account even though they are allowed to be used after they are received.
For franchisors, especially new ones, that
poses a problem. Their financial statements don’t look so good when this rule is applied compared to before
this rule was applied. If you know how to find it, you can see the money
is still there through the accountant’s notes in the disclosure, but often
franchise buyers don’t read the notes. They see the numbers and
think, something to the extent of, “this franchise is in trouble, I’m not joining them”.
There’s another problem, too -- certain states require franchises
with a less desirable financial position (i.e., new businesses) to escrow the
franchise fee funds until the new franchise owner opens their location for
business. That might sound good to the franchise buyer, but it's
incredibly difficult for the franchise to maintain a high level of support to
the launching franchise owner without any funds to support them. How do they
pay for the training, travel, marketing, legal expense, compliance expense and
so on, when they don’t receive their revenue for a year? What
happens is newer franchises end up not opening new units in states which
require these restrictions and everyone loses.
This rule also causes financial confusion.
When you run a business, the goal should be to line up revenue and direct expenses incurred from that revenue with the cash leaving the account each month. This is one of the ways you get more financial clarity and have clean, organized books, ahh! The new revenue recognition rule makes this difficult to do because the cash received is used in the year received but is recorded as revenue in the year the subsequent franchise locations open. And make no mistake -- new franchisees are front-loaded with expenses. They are going to cost the franchisor a lot to get them trained, launched, supported, etc in those first years. The bulk of the expense is early, not in the later years -- revenue doesn’t line up and the end result creates a disproportionate picture for all.
This rule mostly hurts emerging brands,
but emerging brands are a healthy part of any business sector -- we don’t want to hurt them. There needs to be the new innovators to keep
the market fresh and competitive. That’s why we are thankful to the IFA for getting FASB to hold on
this update for a year and also for encouraging FASB to reconsider the
implementation of it for franchising. It might go back to normal which
would really help emerging brands continue to be strong in the eyes of the
franchise buyers and the state regulators.
If you have questions, reach out to us or your FBA franchise broker. Our accounting team is excellent at explaining this and is happy to schedule consultation calls with anyone interested in doing a deep dive into this subject matter in an effort to support buyers and franchisors with the right strategy to manage it. We are here to help.
source: https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/assurance/revenue-recognition-overview-of-asc-606.html