Companies are permitted to make an accounting policy election regarding the attribution method for awards with service-only conditions and graded-vesting features. The valuation method that the company uses (single award or multiple tranches of individual awards) is not required to align with the choice in attribution method used (straight-line or accelerated tranche by tranche). For awards with graded vesting and performance or market conditions, the accelerated graded-vesting attribution approach is required.

Companies are not permitted to choose how the valuation or attribution method is applied to awards with graded-vesting features. Companies should treat each installment of the award as a separate grant. This means that each installment would be separately measured and attributed to expense over the related vesting period, which would accelerate the expense recognition.