I had the honour of chairing Richard Wanstall’s session today at the Brisbane Convention Centre on the topic of AIFRS. Richard is the lead partner for the Accounting Advisory Services Group for Deloitte, and addressed the following issues in his presentation today:
The agenda addressed included the following:
- Current changes in financial reporting
- Impact of new standards in 2008
- Lessons learnt from June 2008
- On the horizon
- Over the horizon
I liked how Richard distinguished between what’s ‘on’ the horizon and what’s ‘over’ it!
Richard did have a lot of references to standards I haven’t looked at in years, so I was not able to follow all of it (my fault, not his!), but it was interesting to hear that the Australian version of IFRS seems to be moving back towards the IFRS Standard (a little, anyway) and that the Australian version is being modified so that we are really ending up with multiple GAAPs depending on the type of entity (e.g. not-for-profits etc).
I must admit that I am also a little concerned to hear that IASB are thinking of extending IFRS to SME’s in some way. I can’t believe that that’s going to reduce compliance costs for anyone. Not, I am sure, that that was the point.
The ‘lessons learned’ part of the presentation detailing key misunderstandings of IFRS was very valuable, as were the ‘on the horizon’ and ‘over the horizon’ sections. I think these last two sections suffered a little as Richard was running out of time. Also they don’t consider the presenters when they go and have economic crises – Richard’s slides were still referencing interest rate increases (which since about last week we now seem to think are off our agenda). In the current environment it seems your slides will be out of date by morning tea!
As for the over-the-horizon issues, I was stunned to hear of potential modifications to lease agreements (bring operating leases onto the balance sheet? Sacrilege!).
As for the overall session, the facilities are excellent as is to be expected at the Brisbane Convention Centre, and the audience was very good. I thought the Chair was a bit ordinary – seemed to think he was funny and forgot to introduce himself (I can say that, as I was the chair!) :).
Richard’s session was very informative and helpful, and Richard clearly knows his stuff. These days, I think I’m doing pretty well if I remember what IASB stands for.
I think the session was hampered by the fact that slides weren’t provided prior to the session (apparently they’re coming), and I think this is particularly helpful if you have a great deal of technical detail to talk to. Something for me to remember next time my sldies are running late.
I do think there was a great deal of information that was provided as a list of changes; I think that as a result of not having slides provided to the audience Richard was compelled to give us an opportunity to absorb the information presented. As a consequence, we didn’t get to hear as much from Richard as to what the implications of the changes actually were – Richard has a lot to add in that space and I think we simply ran out of time.
I liked how Richard was able to answer the only question I could come up with – whether there was an impact on accounting information systems, and Richard was straight onto that one immediately. I hope that made some members of the audience sit up and think about what these AIFRS changes might mean for their accounting systems.
A good session, well worthwhile attending. Richard’s a good presenter and knowing how much time it takes to put those slides together, I know that a lot of work went into preparing for this presentation. Very much appreciated, and I certainly got something out of this very valuable session.
I have some photos of the venue but this computer in the presenter’s room doesn’t have an SD card reader so I’ll add them later.Â