Australian Securities And Investments Commission

Despite those enormous advantages, it has been argued that IFRSS adoption lead to significant costs. The main argument is that IFRSs do not consider local needs and priorities as every country has their own ‘business environment, legal systems, cultures, language and political environment’ (Henderson and Peirson, 2000 cited from Malthus, S., 2004). However, to overcome this problem, IASB can accommodate flexible reporting standards that enable companies to choose alternatives that are more suitable for their external condition. It is opinion of some opponents of IFRS adoption that IAS is ‘insufficiently detailed’ (Uddin,M.S., 2005, p.4) that require accountants’ and auditor’ professional judgment. However, overly detail might be contra productive and not flexible in anticipating every changes and differences.

As the responsibilities of the global harmonization of accounting standards IFRS and GAAP transfer to IASB, FASB’s influence is waning. Advantages of the convergence include high quality financial reporting, which lowers cost of capital for investors and the cost of borrowing for companies. However, there are disadvantages to be noted, such as the costs of introducing IFRS to current and potential accountants and the risk of reducing the uniformity of financial reports due to the lax rulings of IFRS, which promotes earnings management amongst companies. Although arguments regarding the convergence remain prevalent, the completion of IFRS and GAAP is inevitable. Come year 2015, accountants, investors, and companies alike will discover whether or not the pros outweighed the cons; or vice versa.

UK’s IFRSs are designed to make it easier to compare the performance of organizations in different countries, rather than each country maintaining its own GAAP, which makes such comparisons difficult. All listed EU companies have been required to use IFRSs since 2005. The adoption of IFRSs by the private sector is expected to have various benefits for both companies and investors; including (1) UK’s IFRSs will remove the need for companies with foreign subsidiaries to translate the accounts for consolidation with the parent company accounts. Also (2) it will be easier for investors to make informed decisions about the performance of companies in different countries because of the increased transparency and a better understanding of financial statements.

Implementing GAAP and IFRS will reduce huge transition cost that may occur in the future. Due to this difference between GAAP and IFRS, the transition cost from GAAP to IFRS is very high. If a company wants to change accounting reporting method, it must report the current year, pervious year or years depend on the situation and the first year started to report financial statements using the new-implemented method (Kieso Et al., Chap. 5, ETB). It cost a lot for the company to do so.

We now want to look into the International Accounting Standards Board and framework for the preparation and presentation of financial statements. The conceptual frameworks are split into five categories and are in the following order: the objective of financial statements; underlying assumptions; the qualitative characteristics that determine the usefulness of information in financial statements; the definition, recognition, and measurement of the elements from which financial statements are constructed; and the concepts of capital and capital maintenance (Ankarath 11). The standards under IFRS are beginning to become much more popular across the world for several different reasons. The International Financial Reporting Standards are currently being used by at the very least 100 countries and “[was] expected that by 2011, more than 150 countries [would] have adopted them” (Ankarath 1). We happen to find this important because it seems that a lot of countries are starting to adopt IFRS to report their financial statements. One of the reasons why many countries made the switch over to IFRS is because “the decision of the U.S. SEC to allow foreign private issuers to list their securities on U.S.

The aim of IFRS is to go global, where everyone would use a common set of accounting standards making intercontinental transactions more suave. But the question is will these accounting standards

For all size of companies which is included the small and medium enterprises (SME) in given dissimilarity factors such as social, economic and culture, the appropriateness of IFRS with its benefits related the relationship with the implementation costs have to be concerns. For adopting IFRS is an expensive and complicated task for SME because they are not facing the issues of international competitions. It will becomes a burden for company (Chen,

Additionally, there will be a need for a global security force to apprehend offenders of the new standards. This could be a controversial problem in itself. The main issue, is to establish the standards first and get every public trading company to buy in on the idea of implementing the standards. Currently, many countries have agreed to adhere to the international standards. As more countries are adopting the IFRS, the U.S. has yet to agree to the standards. Even though the GAAP and IFRS resembles closely, there are still some issues to be worked out (Street, 2012). Eventually the U.S. will agree to the terms of the IFRS, once all the terms and conditions are in balance (Zeff,

The Securities and Exchange Commission has time and again stated its commitment to shift from GAAP without any forthcoming efforts (Street 258). Despite the slow pace as compared to the other countries that are rapidly changing, the change has become apparent. The SEC allowed financial statements from foreign companies listed on the domestic stock exchanges with IFRS. However, the general approach of the United States to the matter has been of a cautious nature. The SEC adopted a

This paper seeks to analyze the GAAP and the IFRS, their mandate and functions. Further, it shall compare the differences and similarities of the two standards which have such great implications to the functions of accountants, attorneys, corporate directors and

The aim of this assessment is to prepare a report for the chief accountant of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to provide research evidence about whether, and if so how, the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards can improved financial reporting quality in Australia and other adopting countries.

Within the accounting profession, there have been challenges to develop a set of standards that are generally accepted and universally practiced. Thus far, the main debate in setting accounting standards is “Whose rules should we play by, and what should they be?” While the answer is unclear, users of financial statements and reporting must find methods that has an universal objective, that allows “Grapes for Grapes” comparisons that clearly, fairly, and completely prepares a company financial statements. For years GAAP has been the common set of standards and procedures for the U.S, the core for establishing a principle of reporting but now IFRS an international friendly financial reporting system has become popular for its use globally.

IFRS is beneficial due to the adoption of a single set of the accounting standard, Randy, M (2014). This may reduce costs of preparing company’s financial statements, which is a significant expense to a company as opposed to preparing financial statements multiple times over multiple standards, Edwards (1993). This indicates that there is less chance of investors to be confused with companies who follow IFRS; this is the confusion of reports using multiple standards showing different results for the same company every year, which could deter some investors away.

To understand the intricacies of transitioning to IFRS from the U.S. GAAP one must understand what both are. The U.S. GAAP is derived from a combination of standards and principles that are the preferred practices established in the U.S. The main governing bodies of the U.S. GAAP are the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) . These two governing bodies work to ensure the standards of the U.S. GAAP are both relevant and faithfully represented (Wahlen, J. M., Jones, J. P., & Pagach, D. P. 2013).

This report aims to provide the executive directors and senior level management, of Fujitsu with a condensed insight into the potential use of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as a substitute method of “corporate disclosure to its’ current reporting standards (GAAP)”, (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 2014). This report will analyse the primary benefits and limitations of adopting the IFRS as one of many accounting standards, thus ultimately aiming to provide a convincing recommendation as to its’ adoption and future application in Fujitsus’ operations and methods of financial reporting, (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 2014).