Evaluation And Classification Of The Financial Statements

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.

Two traditional approaches to fund programs are grants and donations. Grant funding is typically the largest revenue source for a human service organization. Vast arrays of different grants are available for funding purposes. The XYZ Corporation can utilize these funds from government private foundations. The second traditional fundraising method to fund programs is donations. Building a relationship with the community and having a confident CEO that will reach out for donations can impact the amount of donations your organization receives annually. The XYZ Corporation has a large clientele and therefore should be able to gain recognition within the community and gain donations.

The U.S is moving toward IFRS (Forgeas, 2008). In the near future, all US company may need to report financial statements under IFRS. This makes the adaptation of IFRS unavoidable. Recently, some large multinational

With reference to the measurement of tangible non-current assets, critically evaluate whether financial statements prepared using IFRS’s provide useful information. Use specific examples from the annual reports of FTSE 100 companies to illustrate your points.

With the growth of international business there is a need to standardize financial statements globally. Presently there are “approximately 120 foreign private issuers currently that report to the Commission using IFRS financial statements.” By standardizing accounting practices investors will be able to make informed decisions based on comparability and accuracy of financial statements. The SEC released this statement in 2008, “We believe that IFRS has the potential to best provide the common platform on which companies can report and investors can compare financial information.” The SEC has created a “Roadmap” or plan to convert US GAAP over to IFRS. According to The Committee of

IASB. 2010, "The Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting" IFRS, pp. A21- A38, viewed 23 April 2014,

Ankarath, N., Ghosh, T.P., Alkafaji, Y. A., & Mehta, K. J. (2010). Understanding IFRS Fundamentals: International Financial Reporting Standards.

However, it must not be ruled out that the basic financial statements are similar to those of the IFRS standard (Epstein & Jermakowicz, 2010). The FASB conceptual framework bears a marked similarity to the IASB framework which works to effect efficient preparation and presentation of financial statements. It is under this framework that convergence with the IFRS is promised. However, there exists a comprehensive guide in view of financial statements in terms of preparation and presentation in the IFRS standards. There is also a minimum point identified for the identification of all items in the financial statements. In the IFRS, both the FASB and IASB frameworks are essential in the preparation and presentation of financial statements. However in these IFRS standards, the IASB is less detailed. Convergence with the GAAP is also promised.

This essay will begin to look at the main financial statements used by decision makers in businesses today. This essay will go into detail about the income statement and statement of financial position and whether these two statements provide decision makers with their financial information adequately. This essay will also include the various advantages and disadvantages of each financial statement as well as describing whom the decision makers are and why financial statements are important to them. A conclusion will be present at the end of this essay to demonstrate an overall view of whether financial statements are beneficial to decision makers.

In addition, many studies confirm that investors’ trust in their company and decisions raise by following IFRS principles due to the transparency. In fact, Ball (2006) provides a paper which explains the direct and indirect IFRS’ advantages for the investors. He mentioned 5 direct advantages which the first one is that IFRS provides more accurate, timely and comprehensive data in the financial report and financial statement. The second advantage is that IFRS develop the quality of financial reporting which make small investors be able to deal with the financial statements and benefit from information in the statements since they are less likely to be able to deal with the financial statements, hence, risk is diminished by better understanding of the information in these statements. Thirdly, IFRS help to minimize the cost paid to the financial analysts to evaluate the financial statements’ information by the investors because the formats of reporting are standardized and they are easier to be compared internationally. Minimizing the cost of evaluating and operating the financial information maximizes the stock market efficiency which assists the investors to gain profits. Making the standards uniform helps to eliminate the barriers to the cross-border divestitures and acquisitions, therefore, it will present investors with growing takeover

Being important to the discipline of accounting, the objectives of IFRS and IAS are to give guidance on the presentation of financial statements. IFRS as

There are more specific format and line item disclosure requirements for SEC registrants. Unlike IFRS, it is needed to present statements for the most recent

There are some notable differences between, both, the formats, and the content of financial statements when using SAGE compared the standards required when following IAS1. These differences vary between stating which currency you are using, the contents and layout of items in the statements, rounding, and the terminology used to describe items in the statements and several more. This report aims to compare, critique, and provide suggestion for improvement where necessary regarding SAGE and how it links with IAS 1.