Big-name retailers including Amazon, Starbucks and Wal-Mart should see a major benefit from the landmark new revenue-recognition standard that will hit bottom lines directly starting in the first quarter of 2018.

The largest retailers are still evaluating the final overall impact of the new Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, revenue-recognition rule called ASC 606, which is effective for public companies in 2018. One significant positive impact of the new rules for retail businesses could be how revenue from the unredeemed portion of company-issued gift cards, called breakage revenue, is recognized.

“Under the new standard, hundreds of millions of gift-card breakage revenue may get recognized earlier,” says Olga Usvyatsky, the vice president of research at Audit Analytics.

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Most companies will be able to accelerate breakage revenue rather than holding on to it until the likelihood anyone cashes in the balance becomes remote or until the card expires. The accounting change will affect everyone who issues gift cards, from classic bricks-and-mortar grocery and fashion retailers to restaurants to Amazon and other online stores.

The new accounting standard is intended to make revenue recognition consistent between U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards. The converged standard, jointly prepared by FASB, which is responsible for GAAP, and the International Accounting Standards Board, which is responsible for IFRS, will change the timing of the recognition of some revenue and may impact the gross amount of revenue presented for certain customer contracts. The new rule requires companies to spread breakage income over the expected gift-card redemption period.

In 2009, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, which prohibited the expiration of gift cards within five years from the date they were activated and generally limits inactivity fees on gift cards except in certain circumstances, such as if there has been no transaction for at least 12 months. In the past, companies recorded a potential liability to customers when gift cards were sold. The liability was reduced and revenue recognized as cards were redeemed. Companies have been recognizing the income impact of gift cards that are never redeemed under multiple scenarios based on their own experience with redemption patterns.

Retailers that currently use five years as the time when the probability of redemption finally becomes remote will see the biggest positive impact from the change. Those that use between 24 and 60 months will still feel the impact of a change to a redemption period that will likely be a year or less.

Companies will also feel the positive impact of recognizing the breakage revenue proportionately over their typical redemption period.

Starbucks SBUX, -2.07% , Home Depot HD, -1.70% , Dunkin’ Brands DNKN, -0.71% and Bloomin’ Brands BLMN, -3.76% gift cards do not impose any expiration dates on their cards.

Starbucks recorded $60 million in breakage income in 2016, a significant jump from 2015’s addition of $39.3 million. Home Depot recognized $34 million in gift-card breakage income on 2016, about even with 2015’s $27 million, while Bloomin’ Brands took $26 million into income. Dunkin’ Brands booked $22.3 million last year. None of these companies reported their overall gift-card liability in recent SEC filings, and they are all still evaluating the impact of the new standard and their method of adoption.

Wal-Mart WMT, -1.02% makes no specific disclosures about liability or historical breakage amounts but does say in its quarterly filing with the SEC that as of April 30 it “expects the most significant timing change to result from the revenue associated with the unredeemed portion of Company issued gift cards, which will be recognized over the expected redemption period of the gift card under the new standard rather than waiting until the likelihood of redemption becomes remote or waiting for the gift card to expire.”

Nordstrom JWN, -3.07% had outstanding gift-card liabilities of $389 million at the end of 2016 and recognized gift-card breakage income of $12 million for the year, according to its annual report filed with the SEC. Nordstrom reported that it was changing its estimate of breakage in 2017 to 2% of the amount initially issued from 3% in 2016, which was probably immaterial to its reported income. The company also disclosed it will begin recognizing gift-card breakage income at the point of sale when the rule become effective in the first quarter of 2018.

Based on these disclosures, Usvyatsky estimates that Nordstrom could have a positive impact of approximately $5.5 million from the change in treatment of gift-card breakage in fiscal 2016.

The company previously known as CEBTower Group, now Gartner, estimates the gift-card market’s value to be $149 billion in 2017. A recent report indicates breakage declined from 7% in 2008 to 0.75% in 2015, so Nordstrom’s 2% figure may not be unreasonable but may not be an appropriate estimate for other retailers, says Usvyatsky.

Amazon’s AMZN, -1.78% total liability for unredeemed gift cards at the end of 2016 was $2.4 billion. The rule change will allow Amazon to de-recognize at least 15 months’ worth of its breakage liability as income, because the company can move from waiting until gift cards expire or when the likelihood of redemption becomes remote, generally two years, to its expected typical customer redemption period, or about nine months. Usvyatsky estimates the impact will be positive for Amazon but likely not material, and putting a number on it at this time “would be pure speculation.”

When companies adopt the new standard — for public companies, in the first quarter of 2018 — the adjustment will be made to the beginning balance of retained earnings, according to Jack T. Ciesielski, the publisher of the Analyst’s Accounting Observer. Companies’ first-quarter revenues will include the application of the new method of accounting for breakage, and they will also have to disclose the amount by which the revenue changed due to the accounting change, says Ciesielski.