Navigating the changes to IFRS 2020

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 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 2020 edition?

The December 2020 edition of the publication has been updated for changes to International Financial Reporting Standards that have been published between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2019.

The publication now covers 31 March 2019, 30 June 2019, 30 September 2019, 31 December 2019 and 31 March 2020 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.