Accounting Foundations: Understanding the GAAP

This session introduces participants to the foundational elements of accounting through the lens of GAAP, enabling them to understand not just how financial information is presented, but why it is presented in a specific way.

GAAP is the backbone of U.S. financial reporting, designed to promote consistency, reliability, and comparability across organizations. This training breaks down the core concepts into practical, easy-to-understand explanations suitable for anyone who works with financial data.

We begin by explaining what GAAP is, who establishes it, and why standardization matters. Participants will learn how GAAP helps prevent arbitrary or misleading financial practices by setting clear expectations for how organizations recognize revenue, record expenses, measure assets and liabilities, and disclose financial information. We will review the major categories of GAAP principles including relevance, faithful representation, consistency, comparability, and materiality and illustrate how each one influences day-to-day accounting decisions.

The training then moves into the real-world application of these principles. You'll learn how GAAP affects the timing of transactions, the valuation of financial items, and the structure of financial statements. This includes understanding the differences between accrual and cash accounting, the importance of matching expenses with revenues, and how companies determine when revenue can be recognized under various business models. We will also explore how GAAP ensures that financial statements reflect economic reality as closely as possible while still following standardized rules.

• What GAAP is and who establishes it
• The purpose of standardized accounting rules
• Key GAAP principles (relevance, consistency, materiality, conservatism, etc.)
• How GAAP shapes revenue and expense recognition
• Accrual vs. cash accounting and why it matters
• Asset and liability valuation basics
• How GAAP informs the structure and content of financial statements
• Real-world examples of GAAP in practice for fintechs and financial institutions

• Compliance Professionals
• Risk Managers
• Financial Crime and AML Professionals
• Operations Managers
• Product Managers
• Internal Auditors
• Fintech Partner Managers
• Vendor Management Teams
• Analysts and Business Strategists
• Anyone who reviews or relies on Financial Data

Justin brings over 20 years of wide-ranging experience in compliance, training, and regulation in the financial services sector. Most recently, he served as Head of Compliance Training at Bank of China, where he led the compliance training function and created and monitored the annual training plan through a thorough training needs analysis. Previously, he served as Macquarie Group’s Head of Americas Compliance Training and J.P. Morgan Chase’s compliance training manager. He also worked for FINRA, a US regulator, where he created Examiner University to train examiners on how to perform their function.