By Erica Vernon, CPA

Partner

As I reflect on my career at BRC, I never thought when I met Dan and Heather Hayes (through my now husband Tim Vernon) back in 2000, my life would be forever changed. When I walked into the office for my interview, Marie Yates greeted me with her southern charm. I was a wreck when I walked into the conference room with Pat Price, Rhonda Skiles and a few others. During the interview, when Pat asked me what my long-term goals were, I quickly said that I wanted to own my own CPA firm. She informed me that I could be an owner of BRC. I started as employee #24 and within 12 years fulfilled my dreams.

I started working will Bill Ellis in IT support and prepped tax returns as I finished my degree at Guilford College. By the time I graduated, I had worked in every department, including answering the phones.  However, the day I went out to perform my first non-profit audit, I knew that was going to be my career path. I loved every minute of it. 

After graduating college, I will never forget Tim Smith coming into my office to ask me if I wanted to join him, Wade and Rhonda on the affordable housing ("AH") team.  At the time, I wasn't sure if specializing early would benefit my career path, but the opportunity seemed exciting. This industry has a similar mission as in the non-profit world, so I thought I'd try it.  The leadership of the AH team started with approximately 100 properties, and now BRC serves over 1,000 communities. Attending industry conferences and visiting with residents during fieldwork and grand openings proves that our work is more than debit or credits, and the communities we serve are essential to Americans.

This firm has been with me  through graduating college, passing the CPA exam, marrying my wonderful husband Tim and having two beautiful children Zachary, now 12 years old and Paisley, now 6 years old.  All of the opportunities, constructive feedback, and encouragement has helped shape me into the wife, mother, friend, co-worker and CPA I am today. As the first generation college graduate in my family, I knew I wasn't going to settle, and the opportunities that BRC has provided me over the years have far exceeded my expectations.  I have been fortunate enough to grow professionally and personally with this firm.  Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing, and I credit my successful career to these key moments at BRC.  The foundation that BRC was built on and the culture and values that I was raised with are what make BRC the best place to work.  As one of the next generation of partners, I promise to make sure the next 70 years are just as great, and that those same values are carried forward to future generations.  

 

By Ben Ripple, CPA  

Partner

 

We have included several articles in our newsletters this summer and fall updating you on the effects of ASU 2016-14 for not-for-profit entities.  We will continue our deep dive into ASU 2016-14 by looking at one of the lesser talked about, but equally important, parts of the new standard: how to report restrictions on gifts to be used for acquisition or construction of long-lived assets.

 

Historically, a not-for-profit entity had the option of using two different methods to account for the restrictions for assets received to purchase or build a long-lived asset.  The first was a placed-in-service approach that reported the gifts received as restricted until the long-lived asset being built or purchased was placed in service.  Once the asset was placed into service, the organization would then release from restriction all donations that had been received to acquire the long-lived asset.  The second option available under existing standards involved releasing donor restrictions over the estimated useful life of the long-lived asset.  For example, if an organization received $100,000 to buy a piece of equipment with an estimated useful life of 10 years.  Then, the organization would release from restriction $10,000 a year starting from the point in time that the equipment was placed in service.

 

Since there were two options, this led to inconsistencies in practice, which made comparing the financial statements of different not-for-profit entities difficult.  The new standard now requires, assuming the absence of explicit donor stipulations, that organizations use the placed-in-service approach to release donations from restrictions.  This change simplifies the accounting by removing the need to track releases year after year, and it also makes financial statements more comparable by having everyone use the same method of accounting for these gifts. 

 

As part of adopting the new standard, any gifts for in service long-lived assets that were being released from restriction under the amortized method will be shown as released from restriction at the beginning of the period when the new standard is adopted.  This will save organizations from having to restate any prior year financial statements, but it may lead to difficulty when comparing an individual organization's financial statements year to year.  So, if your not-for-profit organization is going to be affected by this change, it would be a good idea to start discussing it with your board and major donors now.  That will hopefully eliminate some confusion when the organization suddenly shows a huge increase in net assets without donor restriction as compared to unrestricted net assets under the current standard.

 

If you have any questions with this change or any other changes that will occur when adopting the new standard, please reach out to your accounting service providers.  For full detail of the changes coming with ASU 2016-14, please refer to the standard on the FASB website: 

http://www.fasb.org/cs/ContentServer?c=Document_C&pagename=FASB%2FDocument_C%2FDocumentPage&cid=1176168381847

 

 

By Greta Meads, CPA

Manager