This is the 400th posting on this blog…
..so I thought I might take a brief pause for review. From my perspective, the number of posts is actually significantly higher, because before this one, I maintained a similar blog on the website of a Canadian accounting firm. When that firm merged with another, those posts all disappeared: I tried for a while to keep going under the umbrella of the merged firm before starting over on my own (I just like having control!) From the start, I set myself the goal of posting a new entry every five days, in each case no shorter than 800 words. There was actually a brief period, maybe five years ago now, when I thought I might run out of material, and reduced the updating to weekly. I rapidly started to accumulate a backlog though and so soon went back to the original pace, which has continued ever since (I can confirm that I do take vacations – WordPress allows you to schedule posts in advance).
Although I mostly write all this for myself, for my own education and mental discipline and, as the line goes, to exercise what’s left of my wits, it’s still interesting of course to assess the response and interest. I don’t have particularly accurate information on the most popular posts: when I look at the statistics provided by WordPress, the largest category by far is labeled “Home Page/Archives,” with no further breakdown on what people actually looked at. That major caveat aside, the ten most popular pages appear to be the following:
Non-refundable up-front fees – we’ll recognize them later… (over 4,500 hits)
Disclosures about commitments – committed to clarity?
Accounting for revenue – I’ll bill you, then hold!
Accounting for revenue – identifying some material rights
Accounting for revenue – determining the transaction price
Accounting for revenue – identifying the performance obligations
Accounting for revenue – costs to fulfill a contract
Contingent consideration on asset transactions – go either way?
Accounting for revenue – principal versus agent
The main lesson there is obvious – that readers have looked for information on IFRS 15 more than on any other single topic. In contrast, none of my posts on IFRS 16, the leasing standard, even made the top 50. As you’d imagine, interest in IFRS 15 is dwindling now as the work of initial implementation gets put behind us – but even so, half the most popular posts for this past month continued to be on the same topic. The other items in the top ten would be a surprise to me, if that is, I were still capable of being surprised by anything. Sometimes I’ll post something that seems to me of broad applicability and that I expect to attract wide interest, and no one seems to care. Sometimes I’ll put up something that I assume is a narrow technical topic of limited interest (that’s probably how I viewed the one about contingent consideration on asset transactions) and it just keeps on going. Similarly (and not necessarily correlated with those two categories), the popularity of a post certainly doesn’t reflect the amount of time I put into it. Some of the most popular posts mostly just represent cutting and pasting on my part with minimal accompanying commentary.
For a further perspective, the following post comes in at number eleven:
IFRS 69: Accounting for Girlfriends – an analysis!
That’s right – while one faction of the IFRS world comes here for serious information, another is looking for escape. I’m certainly happy if I can provide both. I always feel a little guilty about that particular one, as I wasn’t the originator of IFRS 69 (as far as I know, the author is unknown) but I’m happy to help promote his (presumably it’s his) project. Other popular not-completely-serious posts include this one. My own favourites in that vein include this acronym-heavy entry.
With the same caveat as before, here are some of the least popular posts (not even into double digits):
The utility of IFRS, or: On a clear day you can see forever
Looking for interim reporting strategies? You came to the right place!
IFRS – remaining fit for a changing world
Making materiality judgments – a practice statement to make perfect, part two
CSA proposals for venture issuers – more suitable and manageable?
I’m not sure if I’d even registered before now that I’d written two unloved posts on the interim reporting strategies. Anyway, I suppose those posts (and plenty of others languishing in the lower echelons of popularity) lacked a sufficient hook to interest people. That often applies to my more philosophical or flighty posts, or to those on transient matters of Canadian securities regulation, or the like.
So that’s a little snapshot. Thanks to all readers for the support. I’ll be back in five days’ time with another post which will either be of broad and lasting interest, or which won’t even remotely register, I honestly don’t know which…
The opinions expressed, as for the previous 399 posts, are solely those of the author.
John Hughes IFRS Blog 