Contabilidade internacional 03

'Pick and choose' catering for lesser companies.
By ROBERT BRUCE
Financial Times - 10/09/2007
Surveys IAC1
Page 2

In an era of globalisation a common reporting language makes logical and business sense, and this is why an increasing number of listed companies around the world are using IFRS. But that acceptance opens up a gap further down the business scale.

Private companies and small and medium-sized companies around the world see a need for good financial reporting that will be universally understood, but the lesser size of their operations makes IFRS inappropriate.

The financial reporting needs of companies that are tapping the international capital markets are very different from smaller enterprises whose ambitions will be at a great variance.

There is a need for a universal system of financial reporting for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But the difficulties of creating a one-size-fits-all system that will somehow suit a large private company in Bangkok and a newsagent in the Wiltshire village of Bradford on Avon are obvious. "You could end up with quite strong rules for capital markets," says Allen Blewitt, chief executive of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), "but a hodge-podge of rules for micro and very small businesses".

The debate has been stimulated by the release of an exposure draft detailing a possible standard and guidelines for its use from the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). On October 1, the comment period on that draft will come to an end.

"It has been a really interesting time," says Brian Shearer, senior technical partner at Grant Thornton. "It has had a lot of positive response. The large private company arena is enthusiastic. I hear from all overthe world: 'We will be using it'."

It is not surprising. Initially it was argued that the IASB, which has devoted all of its efforts to the needs of global companies, was not the organisation that ought to be carrying out the exercise. But, in the words of Sir David Tweedie, IASB chairman: "There was an uneasy feeling that the IASB was failing to live up to its obligation as an international organisation."

While economies with a long history of sophisticated financial reporting such as the US and UK could work off existing and long-standing principles and standards, elsewhere around the world it was a different story. "More than 40 participants representing emerging economies in Asia and Latin America called for the IASB to take into account the special needs of SMEs," says Sir David.

So the IASB responded to the call. The most simple route would have been to take the existing 2,500 pages of the IFRS and suggest that SMEs should pluck out the areas that were relevant to them. Instead, the IASB reduced the body of the IFRS by 85 per cent and produced a distilled 254-page draft.

"It is a very important project," says Tom Jones, IASB vice-chairman. "A number of countries have tried to implement full standards for all companies and it just hasn't worked.

"(The challenge) was to produce a set of standards that are adequate for SMEs - relatively simple in style but based on the same format as IFRS and available as people want it or not," he says. It is this last point that is important. Under different jurisdictions financial reporting has different objectives.

In some countries, for example, the rules for private non-listed companies of all sizes are intended to provide information for the tax authorities, rather than to create information and understanding for investors or creditors. So the IASB cannot make the standard mandatory. It will be up to the jurisdictions, country by country, to take up the rules.

In the UK, for example, it would be relatively simple to implement. "But that analysis may not work in other countries", says Peter Holgate, senior technical partner for PwC in the UK. "Where national generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are there for financial reporting reasons then the answer is yes. But where national GAAP is tied to tax provision then perhaps the answer is no."

In countries where the primary purpose of financial reporting at this level is the figures for tax there will be difficulties. Adjustments are possible but that might cause a greater burden for companies of a size where more reporting complexity would be very unwelcome. And that would defeat the IASB's objectives.

What is likely is that the countries that still see tax calculations - rather than information for investors - as the priority of financial reporting, will find themselves increasingly out of step. Relatively simple legislation could solve their difficulty. Being outside the global consensus would be seen as more damaging.

"It will be a bit like IFRS," says Mr Holgate. "More and more countries have adopted it. In 10 years time people will have shifted and adopted the SME standard in more and more countries."

As for the smallest companies, it may be that in the end, just as legislation to raise audit thresholds have lifted many of them out of audit, either something very simple is provided, or nothing at all. Quite what financial reporting rules have to do with a small newsagent is hard to see.

"Beyond providing tax information to the authorities, which you have to do, why should there be a need for anything?" asks Mr Holgate. The issue is to separate the huge need and demand for a universal standard for SMEs from the complications of trying to fit something more simple to different countries' regimes and business quirks.

"There is a huge cry all around the world for an SME standard, but there are hugely different demands," says Ken Wild, global leader, IFRS, at Deloitte. "We need to compromise, and accept it won't be perfect, but we will learn from it. And we can then build from it."

Perhaps the answer is for the international accountancy profession to place the SME standard on to the wave of change that has been running in the global accounting arena over the past year.

"This year has been a blue-sky year," says Mr Shearer of Grant Thornton.

"The US regulators are thinking of allowing IFRS in the US; Brussels has produced a discussion document on a simplified business environment for SMEs; the IASB has reduced everything in IFRS to a draft SMEs standard.

"All of these people are doing things you wouldn't have expected them to do two years ago."

There is a tide turning. "The SME standard should be, could be, and will be, a very useful standard," says Mr Jones.

"Now is the time for us to seize the day," says Mr Shearer.