Regulatory focus has sharpened recently on non-GAAP measures, by which I mean financial metrics, presented by companies outside the audited financial statements, that do not conform to GAAP. Across the financial reporting world, discussion around this issue has been percolating for years. At a 2014 investor relations conference, for example, I moderated a lively panel titled, "Non-GAAP Financial Measures: Useful Tool or Smokescreen?" That panel's title was provocative, in that it suggested an either/or dichotomy - it seemed to frame the issue as a question of whether non-GAAP measures are either good or bad. The reality, of course, is more nuanced. It all depends on how they're used.
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