Financial Reporting

Presentation of Financial
Statements
IAS 1

IAS 1
Objective & Scope
Objective: To prescribe the basis for preparation of
general purpose financial statements to ensure
comparability with previous periods and with financial
statements of other entities. It sets out overall
requirements for presentation, guidelines for structure
and minimum requirements for content.

Scope: Applies to general purpose financial statements

Other IFRSs set out the recognition, measurement &
disclosure requirements for specific transactions or events

Not-for-profit entities may need to amend terminology used

General Features of Financial

Statements
Fair presentation & compliance with IFRSs

Financial position, financial performance and cash flows of an
entity to be presented fairly

Going concern

FS must be prepared on a going concern basis unless
management intends to liquidate the entity or cease trading,
or has no realistic alternative but to do so

Accrual basis of accounting

Shall be used to prepare FS, except for cash flow information

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General Features of Financial
Statements
Materiality & aggregation

Similar items can be aggregated and each class presented
separately. Dissimilar items must be presented separately.

Offsetting

Assets & liabilities, or income & expenditure cannot be offset,
unless required or permitted by an IFRS

Frequency of reporting

An entity shall present a complete set of FS at least annually

General Features of Financial

Statements
Comparative information

This should be disclosed for the previous period for all
amounts reported in the current FS (unless an IFRS permits
or requires otherwise)

Consistency of presentation

FS should retain the presentation and classification of items
from one period to the next unless an alternative would be
more appropriate or and IFRS requires a change

Complete Set of Financial

Statements

Statement of financial position

Statement of comprehensive income

Statement of changes in equity

Statement of cash flows

Notes (accounting policies & other explanatory information)

Statement of financial position as at the beginning of
the prior year (only when an entity applies an accounting
policy retrospectively, makes a retrospective restatement of
items, or reclassifies items) Prior period adjustment IAS 8