Navigating the changes to IFRS for CFOs

Overview

This publication is designed to give Chief Financial Officers a high-level awareness of recent changes to International Financial Reporting Standards that will affect companies’ future financial reporting. It covers both new Standards and Interpretations that have been issued and amendments made to existing ones.

What’s new in the 2016 edition

The December 2016 edition of the publication has been updated for changes to International Financial Reporting Standards that have been published between 1 December 2015 and 30 November 2016. In particular this edition covers the new leasing Standard – IFRS 16, for the first time.

The publication now covers 31 March 2016, 30 June 2016, 30 September 2016, 31 December 2016 and 31 March 2017 financial year ends.

Contents

The table of contents on page 2 lists all the changes covered in the publication, their effective dates, and the page in the publication on which the appropriate summary can be found.

How to use the publication

Identifying the changes that will affect you
The table of contents has been colour coded to help entities planning for a specific financial reporting year end, and identifies:

• Changes mandatorily effective for the first time
• changes not yet effective
• changes already in effect.

Where a change is not yet mandatorily effective for a particular year end, it may still be possible for an entity to adopt it early (depending on local legislation and the requirements of the particular change in concern).

Where a change has been made but an entity is yet to apply it, certain disclosures are required to be made under IAS 8 ‘Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors’. Disclosures required include the fact that the new or amended Standard or Interpretation is in issue but has not yet been applied, and known or reasonably estimable information relevant to assessing its possible impact on the financial statements in the period of initial application.

Identifying the commercial significance of the changes in the publication
For each change covered in the publication, we have included a box on its commercial implications. These sections focus on two questions:

• How many entities will be affected?
• What will be the impact on affected entities?

A traffic light system indicates our assessment of the answers to these questions.