Published by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a discussion memorandum is a document intended to encourage discussion and debate amongst accounting and financial professionals in regards to a current issue relating to the accounting industry. Items of discussion could include revenue recognition policies, depreciation guidelines or any other topics relating to the accounting industry.
A discussion memorandum is not necessarily issued for negative reasons and may just be published to discuss positive aspects or changes to accounting principals. Quite often however these documents are published to discuss current issues which accountants and other professionlas feel require updating and may actually lead to an issuance of the Statements of Financial Accounting Standards.