Your standard is not sufficiently neutral, or: blow-up!

Among the many commenters on the ISSB’s recent consultation on agenda priorities was the World Nuclear Association. Here’s some of what they had to say: I’m not qualified to comment on the specific issue raised, although it strikes me that the dramatic numerical disparity cited (879 versus 28) is a bit less meaningful than the…

Language barriers and the IASB, or: please read the letter that I wrote!

(See Peter Clark’s commentary on the following [evidently even more flawed than usual!] post) This is from the article No Comment: Language Barriers and the IASB’s Comment Letter Process, by Eduardo Flores, Brian Monsen, Emily Shafron and Christopher G. Yust: The authors carried out a study based on cataloging over 10,000 comment letters related to 88…

Improving climate-related disclosures – worth a try!

The IASB recently announced that it has “decided to explore targeted actions to improve the reporting of climate-related and other uncertainties in the financial statements.” It summarized: A staff paper set out some of the issues underlying this initiative: The staff paper notes that the greater attention to climate-related disclosures outside the financial statements may,…

Accounting is the language of business! (or, alternatively, no it isn’t!)

Let’s play another round of “Great Cliches of IFRS” – Well, that’s probably enough already. The familiar “language of business” phrase is often attributed to Warren Buffet; a recent LinkedIn post by Accent Financial Services cited him in this regard and then expanded: “In business, there are three main “languages” – #accounting, #finance, and #economics. In order to…

ChatGPT wrote this blog post!

The last post covered the recent exposure draft of “Annual Improvements to IFRS Accounting Standards – Volume 11” Shortly after drafting that, it occurred to me that I hadn’t directly experienced the ChatGPT that everyone’s talking about, although I’d heard a few things about its ability to knock out a usable first draft on virtually…

Annual Improvements to IFRS, or: no more leaks!

The IASB recently issued its exposure draft of “Annual Improvements to IFRS Accounting Standards – Volume 11”, with comments requested by December 11, 2023. So look, suppose someone says to you, I just improved my home; and you say, sounds great, what did you do; and he says, I fixed a leaky faucet….well, you might…

Inside standard setting, or: slow down. you’re paddling too fast!

Continuing on our recent theme of happy takes on accounting… …this time from a perhaps unexpected source, the Chair of Canada’s Accounting Standards Board, Armand Capisciolto. He’s instigated a series of “Inside Standard Setting” articles, comprising “A little “inside baseball” on accounting standard setting” – a serious purpose, executed with a light touch. The first…

Financial statements as narratives, or: no more stories!

Well, it’s been a few years since the last installment, so let’s continue the periodic series I call “Great Cliches of IFRS.” Today’s example – well, you’ll see: And I could go on indefinitely. You may already be thinking that even if it is a cliché, it’s one that’s worth repeating for the sake of…