A revolving line of credit can be accessed or "drawn down" at any time at the borrower's discretion. In a typical arrangement, a borrower pays the lender a fee in exchange for the lender's commitment to stand ready to lend a specified maximum amount over a specified period of time. This means that a reporting entity may have paid the fee to provide access to the revolving line of credit, but may not have a liability on its books—either because it has not drawn down on the revolving line of credit, or it has repaid amounts previously drawn down.

Deferred initial up-front commitment fees paid by a reporting entity to a lender represent the benefit of being able to access capital over the contractual term, and therefore, meet the definition of an asset. Reporting entities should subsequently amortize the asset ratably over the term of the line-of-credit arrangement, regardless of whether there are any outstanding borrowings on the line-of-credit arrangement.

Reporting entities should classify the entire asset as noncurrent (unless the original commitment was for less than one year).

In the limited circumstances when a reporting entity draws down on a line of credit and does not intend to repay the borrowing until the contractual maturity of the arrangement (i.e., the borrowing is treated like a term loan), we believe the portion of the costs related to each respective draw down could be presented as a direct deduction from the carrying value of the debt when drawn. Under this approach, the reporting entity should amortize commitment fees for the portion associated with the draw down using the effective interest method (as is done for a term loan).