Navigating the changes to IFRS

Every year the requirements of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) change. New Standards, Interpretations and Amendments are published that will affect companies’ future financial reporting. Our publication, ‘Navigating the Changes to International Reporting Standards [ 1629 kb ], is designed to give Chief Financial Officers a high-level awareness of these recent changes to IFRS. It covers both new Standards and Interpretations that have been issued and amendments made to existing ones.

What’s new in the 2017 edition?

The December 2017 edition of the publication has been updated for changes to International Financial Reporting Standards that have been published between 1 December 2016 and 30 November 2017. In particular this edition covers the new Standard for insurance contracts – IFRS 17, for the first time.

The publication now covers 31 March 2017, 30 June 2017, 30 September 2017, 31 December 2017 and 31 March 2018 financial year ends.

Effective dates of new Standards

The publication includes a table on page 2 which lists all the changes included, their effective dates and whether early application is permitted. However the latter will also be dependent on local legislation. The table can be used to identify the changes that affect you. It 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.

Identifying the commercial significance of the changes

For each change covered in the publication, we have considered its commercial implications. This assessment focuses 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.