Accounting policy changes – a bigger carrot

The IASB has issued Accounting Policy Changes, an exposure draft of proposed changes to IAS 8, with comments to be received by July 27, 2018. The exposure draft proposes adding the following new definition to IAS 8: An agenda decision is a decision published by the IFRS Interpretations Committee explaining its rationale for not adding…

Reducing the regulatory burden, or maybe just jiggling it…

I wrote last year about the Canadian Securities Administrators’ CSA Consultation Paper 51-404 Considerations for Reducing Regulatory Burden for Non-Investment Fund Reporting Issuers, seeking “comments on potential options for reducing regulatory burden for non-investment fund reporting issuers in the public markets.” The CSA has now issued CSA Staff Notice 51-313, providing an update on what came of…

Cash-generating units – whatever you do, don’t touch!

A European example of issues arising in applying IAS 36 As part of its activities, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) organizes a forum of enforcers from 30 different European jurisdictions, all of whom carry out monitoring and review programs similar to those carried out here by the Canadian Securities Administrators. ESMA recently published…

Principles of disclosure – take your paper and, uh…

Let’s return to the IASB’s Principles of Disclosure discussion paper, for which the comment period closed in October…. I commented last time that it’s very much a document for a linear, paper-based world, barely acknowledging the impact of technology. This is how the IASB staff summed it up in a staff paper: Many respondents were…

Principles of disclosure – stop me before I over-explain!

We looked briefly last April at the IASB’s Principles of Disclosure discussion paper, for which the comment period closed in October…. Although accounting policy disclosures aren’t usually among the most decision-critical aspects of any particular set of financial statements, they often contribute very disproportionately to their overall volume. My anecdotal impression is that many larger…

IFRS – a clear gift to the world!

How IFRS provides benefits to emerging jurisdictions From time to time (or perhaps more often than that) I cite various doubts or reservations about the utility of IFRS financial statements. Let’s forget about that today and focus on areas where the benefits of IFRS-compliant reporting seem to be a bit clearer. This is from an…

Hey, financial statements – this thing between us just isn’t working out!

How helpful are financial statements in the new economy? A recent blog post took off from the following premise: With only 20% of companies’ market value found in the tangible assets in the financial statements, it is no wonder companies around the world are increasingly using the International <IR> Framework to support integrated thinking and help…

IFRS 15 in action – part 2!

Let’s look at another recent disclosure about the impact of IFRS 15. Here’s an extract from what SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. had to say: Let’s pick out a few of the items there: Variable consideration We’ve noted before that an entity doesn’t include any amount of variable consideration in the transaction price unless “it is highly…