1.   Accounting rules require businesses to estimate the cost of providing health-care benefits to their employees in the future and to deduct that value from their earnings.

2.   Accounting rules require companies to write off goodwill against their earnings.

3.   Accounting rules require software firms to delay recording some of the revenue for such sales in case the buyer cancels the contract or returns the product altogether.

4.   If the fees are called maintenance, then accounting rules require software companies to book them a little at a time over the life of the contract.

5.   The effect on corporate finances would be immediate, because generally accepted accounting rules require companies to figure future health-care costs into their balance sheets.

6.   Rosenfield said his group will ask the SEC to investigate whether accounting laws require the utilities to write off their losses immediately.

7.   The troubled waste disposal and recycling company announced last month that accounting irregularities would require it to restate earnings for the past three years.