PREPARING FOR TRANSITION
When a country switches from its domestic GAAP to IFRS, many people and organizations are affected. Getting ready for the transition is a major task. Research by John Goodwin, Barry J. Cooper and Shireenjit Johl evaluated the preparedness of Australian listed firms for IFRS. Specifically, these researchers examined changes in explanations from Australian GAAP to IFRS between the half-year and annual reports in the first year of IFRS adoption.
Switching from Australian GAAP to IFRS required Australian firms to provide new accounting information via the firms’ reporting function. Due to the operational significance of IFRS, firms were expected to consider compliance with IFRS as sufficiently important to be treated as a strategic management issue. If Australian firms and their auditors were prepared for the transition, then no changes to explanations in the annual reports would be anticipated.
Examination of changes to explanations from Australian GAAP to IFRS between the two reporting dates of the first year of IFRS revealed that 33% of firms changed their explanations. The researchers conclude that most of these firms or their auditors were unprepared for IFRS at transition, consistent with observations made in the months preceding IFRS adoption and with most other related studies.
Among changes to explanations, most concerned cash flows, earnings and equity, with most firms revising their initial IFRS earnings or equity by less than 5%, usually downward. The most often adjusted item was income tax. The explanation for this was complexity of the income tax standard and the fact that a tax reconciliation was only prepared at the annual report preparation time.
“How Prepared was Australia for International Financial Reporting Standards? The Case of Listed Firms” appeared in the March 2008 issue of the Australian Accounting Review