IFRS – The Second Wave

Canadian companies have issued their first International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) financial statements and most still face numerous challenges in implementing the new accounting standards on a day-to-day basis. It appears, however, that the transition exercise is far from over because the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has more than 30 review projects on its agenda over the next few years. This, the second unavoidable wave of changes — consolidation, financial instruments, leases, financial statement presentation — is already dubbed the Big Bang II in Europe.

Canadian publicly accountable enterprises must be equipped to deal with this flood of new material. These extensive reforms will not only have accounting implications, they will also affect management information (including performance indicators), the company’s strategic decisions, operations, internal controls and information systems. Given this change in management process, companies need to identify their challenges and prepare the key players, such as internal and external auditors, in the process of managing the change.

For more information, read the article “The Big Bang, II” in the March 2012 issue of CAmagazine online.