Com¬po¬nents of financial state¬ments
A complete set of financial state¬ments includes: [IAS 1.10]
o a statement of financial position (balance sheet) at the end of the period
o a statement of profit or loss and other com¬pre¬hen¬sive income for the period (presented as a single statement, or by pre¬sent¬ing the profit or loss section in a separate statement of profit or loss, im¬me¬di¬ately followed by a statement pre¬sent¬ing com¬pre¬hen¬sive income beginning with profit or loss)
o a statement of changes in equity for the period
o a statement of cash flows for the period
o notes, com¬pris¬ing a summary of sig¬nif¬i¬cant accounting policies and other ex¬plana¬tory notes
o com¬par¬a¬tive in¬for¬ma¬tion pre¬scribed by the standard.
An entity may use titles for the state¬ments other than those stated above. All financial state¬ments are required to be presented with equal promi¬nence. [IAS 1.10]
When an entity applies an accounting policy ret¬ro¬spec¬tively or makes a ret¬ro¬spec¬tive re¬state¬ment of items in its financial state¬ments, or when it re¬clas¬si¬fies items in its financial state¬ments, it must also present a statement of financial position (balance sheet) as at the beginning of the earliest com¬par¬a-tive period.
Reports that are presented outside of the financial state¬ments – including financial reviews by man-age¬ment, en¬vi¬ron¬men¬tal reports, and value added state¬ments – are outside the scope of IFRSs. [IAS 1.14]
Fair pre¬sen¬ta¬tion and com¬pli¬ance with IFRSs
The financial state¬ments must "present fairly" the financial position, financial per¬for¬mance and cash flows of an entity. Fair pre¬sen¬ta¬tion requires the faithful rep¬re¬sen¬ta¬tion of the effects of trans¬ac¬tions, other events, and con¬di¬tions in ac¬cor¬dance with the de¬f¬i¬n¬i¬tions and recog¬ni¬tion criteria for assets, li¬a-bil¬i¬ties, income and expenses set out in the Framework. The ap¬pli¬ca¬tion of IFRSs, with ad¬di¬tional dis-clo¬sure when necessary, is presumed to result in financial state¬ments that achieve a fair pre¬sen¬ta-tion. [IAS 1.15]
IAS 1 requires an entity whose financial state¬ments comply with IFRSs to make an explicit and un¬re-served statement of such com¬pli¬ance in the notes. Financial state¬ments cannot be described as complying with IFRSs unless they comply with all the re¬quire¬ments of IFRSs (which includes International Financial Reporting Standards, International Accounting Standards, IFRIC In¬ter¬pre¬ta-tions and SIC In¬ter¬pre¬ta¬tions). [IAS 1.16]
In¬ap¬pro¬pri¬ate accounting policies are not rectified either by dis¬clo¬sure of the accounting policies used or by notes or ex¬plana¬tory material. [IAS 1.18]
IAS 1 ac¬knowl¬edges that, in extremely rare cir¬cum¬stances, man¬age¬ment may conclude that com¬pli-ance with an IFRS re¬quire¬ment would be so mis¬lead¬ing that it would conflict with the objective of financial state¬ments set out in the Framework. In such a case, the entity is required to depart from the IFRS re¬quire¬ment, with detailed dis¬clo¬sure of the nature, reasons, and impact of the departure. [IAS 1.19-21]