Recently Adopted Accounting Guidance
On May 28, 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, Topic 606, requiring an entity to recognize the amount of revenue to which it expects to be entitled for the transfer of promised goods or services to customers. Topic 606 also includes Subtopic 340-40, Other Assets and Deferred Costs - Contracts with Customers, which requires the capitalization of incremental costs to obtain a contract with a customer. The new revenue standard replaces most existing revenue recognition guidance in GAAP and permits the use of either the full retrospective or modified retrospective transition method.
On December 1, 2018, the beginning of our fiscal year 2019, we adopted the requirements of the new revenue standard utilizing the modified retrospective method of transition. Prior period information has not been restated and continues to be reported under the accounting standard in effect for those periods. We applied the new revenue standard to contracts that were not completed as of the adoption date, consistent with the transition guidance. Further, adoption of the new revenue standard resulted in changes to our accounting policies for revenue recognition and sales commissions as detailed below.
We recognized the following cumulative effects of initially applying the new revenue standard as of December 1, 2018
Below is a summary of the adoption impacts of the new revenue standard:
We capitalized $413.2 million of contract acquisition costs comprised of sales and partner commission costs at adoption date (included in prepaid expenses and other current assets for the current portion and other assets for the long-term portion), with a corresponding adjustment to retained earnings. We are amortizing these costs over their respective expected period of benefit.
Revenue for certain contracts that were previously deferred would have been recognized in periods prior to adoption under the new standard. Upon adoption, we recorded the following adjustments to our beginning balances to reflect the amount of revenue that will no longer be recognized in future periods for such contracts: an increase in unbilled receivables (included in trade receivables, net) of $24.8 million, an increase in contract assets (included in prepaid expenses and other current assets for the current portion and other assets for the long-term portion) of $46.4 million and a decrease in deferred revenue of $52.8 million, with corresponding adjustments to retained earnings.
We recorded an increase to our opening deferred income tax liability of $82.8 million, with a corresponding adjustment to retained earnings, to record the tax effect of the above adjustments.
Further, we had other impacts to various accounts which resulted to an immaterial net reduction to our retained earnings.
Table:
(in thousands) | As of November 30, 2018 | Topic 606 Adoption Adjustments | As of December 1, 2018
Assets |  |  | 
Trade receivables, net of allowances for doubtful accounts | $1,315,578 | $43,028 | $1,358,606
Prepaid expenses and other current assets | 312,499 | 186,220 | 498,719
Other assets | 186,522 | 273,421 | 459,943
Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity |  |  | 
Accrued expenses | 1,163,185 | 30,358 | 1,193,543
Deferred revenue, current | 2,915,974 | (52,842) | 2,863,132
Deferred income taxes | 46,702 | 82,834 | 129,536
Retained earnings | $11,815,597 | $442,319 | $12,257,916


Question: What does topic 606 require a company to do?
Answer: requiring an entity to recognize the amount of revenue to which it expects to be entitled for the transfer of promised goods or services to customers., requires the capitalization of incremental costs to obtain a contract with a customer.