IFRS / IAS standards assist in identifying and recognising business transactions for accounting purposes, and the required reporting of those transactions in a set of financial statements.

This session focuses on IAS 1, highlighting various aspects of financial statements, and what needs to go into an IFRS set, including:

• The requirements in preparing each individual statement i.e., balance sheet, income statement, notes, etc.
• Underlying principles, like going concern, the need for comparatives, inter alia,
• Structure / form / minimum content of individual statements, and
• Other disclosures, for example, judgement and estimation uncertainty, dividends, amongst others

IAS 1 provides guidance in preparing IFRS-compliant financial statements, and the relevant content covered in this session includes:

• Pervasive principles:
• Going concern, accrual basis, comparatives, fair presentation, materiality and aggregation
• Minimum statements included in a set of financial statements, and the minimum required line items within each statement, for:
• Balance sheet,
• Income statement,
• Statement of changes in equity, and
• Notes to the financial statements

NOTE: Statement of cash flows is dealt with separately in IAS 7

• Accounting policy elections in terms of statements to be presented
• Other key disclosures,
• Judgement / key assumptions
• Dividends
• Entity particulars
• Appropriate terminology / naming convention used in financial statements

NOT COVERED: Statement of Cash Flows as it is dealt with separately under IAS 7.