Cloud economics: The new cloud accounting mandate

Changes to cloud-cost accounting rules: What you need to know

As of 1 January 2020, new rules for accounting for cloud costs are in place. To make cloud-cost accounting practices more consistent, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has implemented guidance that requires companies to capitalize, rather than expense some cloud costs. These changes promise to bring new benefits such as consistency and reduction of complexity, but to also present some challenges for companies on their journey to cloud. In this episode, David Linthicum and guests, Deloitte’s Chris Chiriatti and Sean Torr, discuss the scope of the changes, as well as possible benefits and pitfalls that companies will need to address. The upshot? The changes will likely be positive overall but may require new controls and accounting practices, as well as investments in process automation, to implement correctly.

Ultimately this is going to bring consistency to the way in which we do accounting for companies in terms of cloud-based resources. This is going to reduce the complexity that we're currently going through right now.

Chris Chiriatti is an audit and assurance managing director at Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Sean Torr a managing director with Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, which is part of Deloitte & Touche LLP.

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Put Cloud in context with the future of business and technology

Because cloud is never just about cloud, a podcast about cloud isn’t either. Our two hosts deliver two unique perspectives to bring you closer to achieving what matters most—your possible. 

For Cloud Professionals, hosted by David Linthicum, provides an enterprise-level, strategic look at key issues impacting clients’ businesses. David, ranked as the #1 cloud influencer in a recent Apollo Research report, has published 13 books on computing, written over 5,000 published articles and performed over 500 conference presentations, making his expertise on the power of cloud simply undeniable.

As a pioneer in cloud computing, Mike Kavis leads Architecting the Cloud, which offers insights from the POV of those who’ve had hands-on experience with cloud technology. Mike’s personal cloud journey includes leading the team that built the world's first high-speed transaction network in Amazon's public cloud—a project that ultimately won the 2010 AWS Global Startup Challenge.

With two experts in your ear, you’ll have the content you need to drive the next conversation around cloud. Check out both talk tracks within the Deloitte On Cloud podcast to get the compelling stories on your schedule to help you understand the topics that are reshaping today’s market.

Contact us at cloud@deloitte.com for information on this or any other podcasts.

Or visit the On Cloud library for the full collection of episodes.

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