Tag: percentage of completion method of accounting

The Power of Illusion

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs ~ Leave a comment

ASC 606.  While I think it can be a very useful tool in some situations, like with condominium and homeowner associations, I am not convinced that it will help a reader, an investor, anywhere else.  That is because it is almost uniformly built on the concept of management choice – which sadly can lead to poor decisions that ultimately hurt investors.

In a perfect world, I think the concept of ASC 606 is inspiring.  Finally, a reader can see what has been committed to and what prices will end up being paid.  What a great way to predict a company’s ability to generate future cash flows.  But that isn’t what is going to happen. I have seen enough at my end of the spectrum to know that anytime subjective measures are involved, those impacted want the measures skewed in their direction.  And something like ASC 606, which almost completely makes determining revenues subjective, simply is going to take this to a new level.

This reminds me of an attest engagement on a contractor.  The contractor stated that they had a maintenance contract which runs for 12 months with options to extend an additional 12 months and 6 months.  No problem.  We though.  We asked for the contract, the controller hemmed and hawed.  Why?  She put the information into the disclosure so there must be a basis for its inclusion.

Apparently not.  It seems that the customer is not so thrilled and has expressed that they won’t extend the contract.  But there is a catch.

The customer is also the ultimate customer on several other contracts.  It seems that the customer accounts for about 60% of the revenues for this company and when this contract goes, there is about a 99.8% chance that the other contracts are not renewed and new contracts won’t be awarded.

This all came to a head when we questioned the fade, or loss of gross profit, over contracts.  Long-term contracts are handled on the guesstimate method.  We use the “objective” measure of actual cost incurred in relationship to the guess of total estimated costs.  The total estimated cost is management’s choice, its illusion, which drives not only gross profit recognized but also the percentage of completion.

We identified a problem.  The fade, or the loss of gross profit over time, on contracts was starting to become noticeable.  The graph shows what we noticed:

fade analysis

The gross profit percentage ends up remarkably lower over time.  There is really only one reason for this, the inability to estimate accurately.  Notice that all fade is in excess of 5 basis points, the smallest fade being 7 points on project ABC.  If this were a $10,000 project, that wouldn’t be a big issue but it is their second largest contract.  And worse, you can see that on one job they estimated an increase in gross profit in year two only to have it plunge to a net contract loss of 5%.

GP Fade

I know I know, the point.

The problem is that they estimated their new contract, the one likely not to get extended at 45% gross profit.  The trend though, is clear: Gross profit fades lower consistently over time.  The trend indicates to us that the project will end up at 30% overall.  The project AAA is recorded at 5% complete which means the company has recorded over $100K of gross profit.  The trend says that, at best, they have earned $67K.

But wait, there’s more.

Since the original estimated cost in year one is too low, this changes the percentage of completion.  Not a lot, but enough.  The true fade, after revising the percentage of completion is

true fade.png

Huge.  So huge, in fact, that it can’t be ignored.  It totals out to about $375K of gross profit incorrectly recognized in earlier years.

Of course, our concern is not really those older contracts, it is the new one, the one which is likely not to be extended.  It is our concern that current gross profit is overstated by about $50K AND it is likely that this contract won’t be reupped and that there will be no future contracts with this customer.

With the loss of this customer, revenues will drop 50%.  Given the fade problem from poor estimates, the company has not had the gross profit it envisioned on these projects which has forced it to borrow heavily to meet its operating needs during the end phase of these projects.  The borrowing, by the way, is from both the bank and the new projects with higher initial gross profit that will ultimately fade away.

Since we are independent CPA’s attesting to the financial statements, we are held to the standard that we think the company in question can continue as a going concern for at least one year from the date of our report.  We ran several different scenarios, none of which succeed in changing the trajectory.

I would like to say there was a happy ending.  I guess in a way there was.  Management, the sole owner, decided to terminate our engagement.  The next year, the owner filed for bankruptcy.  The bank never got is independent accountants’ report by the way.  They didn’t call the loan and ended up with over a $500K loss due to the reorganization.

It is tempting to believe that management wants accuracy and objectivity in its reports.  But as with estimated costs to complete, ASC 606 is open to management’s very subjective and capitalistic approach.  Management is responsible for

  • determining what makes up a contract with a customer
  • selecting at least one (and possibly only one) performance obligation
  • Allocating the contract price over the performance obligations
  • Determining when the performance obligation is complete so that the price can be recognized

These all have similar requirements – management’s ability to use good judgment.  And much like with contract estimates under old GAAP, it will be well-nigh impossible for an independent CPA to challenge management’s assertions, until it is too late.

 

Debit This, Credit That, isn’t that Accounting?

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes all you can do is simply stare at a speaker and wonder what is going through his mind.  “Accounting says you have to debit receivables and credit revenues.”

Um, no.

Accounting makes no such claim.  Effective accountants (and auditors) know that often earning revenues is divorced from demands for payment.  Demanding payment is a contract right – your attorney might require a retainer, your roofer wants a deposit, you want to be paid for the feet of pipe laid; but none of these are revenues. Yet.

Accounting is about reporting the economic substance of a transaction.  Accounting has to look for features which support the premise that the efforts necessary have been expended and accepted by the buyer in order to record revenue.  It doesn’t have to be hard, but it does have to be consistently applied.

Take for example, that piping contractor.  Let’s say he has a contract to

  • Dig a 1,000 foot ditch for $20/foot
  • Lay 1,000 of 24″ concrete pipe at $18/foot
  • Backfill and compact the trench for a lump sum of $8,000

The contract requires that the contractor submit a schedule of values (work completed) in order to be paid.

On the first billing, the contractor submits the schedule for the 1,000 feet of ditch dug for $20,000.  The effective accountant does not immediately do this for the invoice:

  • Accounts Receivable       $20,000
  •     Contract Revenues                         $20,000

That is because the rules for recognizing revenues is not based upon something as arbitrary as a schedule of values.  The smart accountant understands that the true measure of the revenue for a contractor is based upon an analysis of costs expended to actual anticipated costs.  So the accountant creates a little spreadsheet:

Anticipated Period Actual
Contract Revenue Costs Gross Profit Costs % Complete Revenue Billings Over/Under CIE BIE
ABCD     46,000   35,000          11,000   6,500 18.57%       8,543   20,000          11,457     –   11,457

The Company incurred only $6,500 of costs in the period.  This represents less than 20% of the total anticipated costs for the project.  The reality is, the contractor front-loaded the bid.  This is perfectly acceptable – provided the owner accepts the schedule of values and is a great way to get project funds in early.  But, GAAP says to recognize the contract’s revenue based on the relationship between actual costs incurred and the estimated total costs to complete.

In this case, only 18.6% of the project costs were incurred so really only 18.56% of the contracts revenues are earned.  The remainder is considered unearned revenues or, in construction accounting parlance, Billings in Excess of Costs and Gross Profits.  The accounting principle is called the percentage of completion method of accounting for long-term construction contracts.  The rule says that the form – the schedule of values – is not the appropriate measurement for recording revenues: The comparison of actual to anticipated costs is the appropriate basis for recording revenues.  Economic substance over the form.  $8,500 not $20,000 for revenues.

Accounting is more than debits and credits.  That is, assuming you need to know what is actually happening economically in an enterprise.  Most non-employee investors in a business should be thinking about the true substance of transactions and how they impact today’s profits and tomorrow’s cash flows.  Revenues and profits generate true cash flow, not the other way around.  The effective accountant knows this is far more important than debits and credits.