Equity investments

IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements – Best read

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IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements

The IASB’s newly issued standard IFRS 18 mainly deals with the presentation of the income statement, balance sheet and certain footnotes. At the same time, certain aspects of the cash flow statement are modified. IFRS 18 does not change the recognition and measurement of the components of financial statements; therefore, the amounts reported as shareholders’ equity and net income are both unchanged. However, it will have a significant impact on the presentation and disaggregation of what is reported (primarily in the income statement and footnotes), including what subtotals companies must provide and how these are defined.

There are five main areas where we think the new standard will help investors as users of IFRS Financial Statements:IFRS 18 Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements

Operating–Investing–Financing classification

IFRS 18 aims to establishes a structured statement of profit or loss by implementing the following measures:

  • It introduces three defined categories for income and expenses: operating, investing, and financing.
    • Operating – income/expenses resulting from the company’s main business operations.
    • Investing – income/expenses from:
      • investments in associates, joint ventures and unconsolidated subsidiaries;
      • cash and cash equivalents;
      • assets that generate a return individually and largely independently (e.g. rental income from investment properties).
    • Financing – consisting of:
      • income/expenses from liabilities related to raising finance only (e.g. interest expense on borrowings); and
      • interest income/expenses and effects of changes in interest rates from other liabilities (e.g. interest expense on lease liabilities).
  • It mandates to present new defined totals and subtotals, including operating profit, thereby enhancing the clarity and consistency of financial reporting.

Entities primarily engaged in investing in assets or providing finance to customers are subject to specific categorisation requirements. This entails that additional income and expense items, which would typically be classified as investing or financing activities, are instead categorised under operating activities. Consequently, operating profit reflects the outcomes of an entity’s core business operations. Identifying the main business activity involves exercising judgment based on factual circumstances.

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Example accounting policies

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Example accounting policies

Get the requirements for properly disclosing the accounting policies to provide the users of your financial statements with useful financial data, in the common language prescribed in the world’s most widely used standards for financial reporting, the IFRS Standards. First there is a section providing guidance on what the requirements are, followed by a comprehensive example, easy to tailor to the specific needs of your company.Example accounting policies

Example accounting policies guidance

Whether to disclose an accounting policy

1. In deciding whether a particular accounting policy should be disclosed, management considers whether disclosure would assist users in understanding how transactions, other events and conditions are reflected in the reported financial performance and financial position. Disclosure of particular accounting policies is especially useful to users where those policies are selected from alternatives allowed in IFRS. [IAS 1.119]

2. Some IFRSs specifically require disclosure of particular accounting policies, including choices made by management between different policies they allow. For example, IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment requires disclosure of the measurement bases used for classes of property, plant and equipment and IFRS 3 Business Combinations requires disclosure of the measurement basis used for non-controlling interest acquired during the period.

3. In this guidance, policies are disclosed that are specific to the entity and relevant for an understanding of individual line items in the financial statements, together with the notes for those line items. Other, more general policies are disclosed in the note 25 in the example below. Where permitted by local requirements, entities could consider moving these non-entity-specific policies into an Appendix.

Change in accounting policy – new and revised accounting standards

4. Where an entity has changed any of its accounting policies, either as a result of a new or revised accounting standard or voluntarily, it must explain the change in its notes. Additional disclosures are required where a policy is changed retrospectively, see note 26 for further information. [IAS 8.28]

5. New or revised accounting standards and interpretations only need to be disclosed if they resulted in a change in accounting policy which had an impact in the current year or could impact on future periods. There is no need to disclose pronouncements that did not have any impact on the entity’s accounting policies and amounts recognised in the financial statements. [IAS 8.28]

6. For the purpose of this edition, it is assumed that RePort Co. PLC did not have to make any changes to its accounting policies, as it is not affected by the interest rate benchmark reforms, and the other amendments summarised in Appendix D are only clarifications that did not require any changes. However, this assumption will not necessarily apply to all entities. Where there has been a change in policy, this will need to be explained, see note 26 for further information.

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Startup valuation

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Startup valuation

If every business starts with an idea, young companies can range the spectrum. Some are unformed, at least in a commercial sense, where the owner of the business has an idea that he or she thinks can fill an unfilled need among consumers.

Others have inched a little further up the scale and have converted the idea into a commercial product, albeit with little to show in terms of revenues or earnings. Still others have moved even further down the road to commercial success, and have a market for their product or service, with revenues and the potential, at least, for some profits.

Startup valuationSince young companies tend to be small, they represent only a small part of the overall economy. However, they tend to have a disproportionately large impact on the economy for several reasons.

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Purchased and originated credit-impaired financial assets – IFRS 9 Best Read

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Purchased and originated credit-impaired financial assets

Purchased and originated credit-impaired financial assets are those for which one or more events that have a detrimental impact on the estimated future cash flows have already occurred. If these financial assets had been originated or purchased before becoming credit impaired, they would be in Stage 3 and lifetime expected losses would be recognised.

Purchased and originated credit-impaired financial assetsIndicators that an asset is credit-impaired would include observable data about the following events:

  • Significant financial difficulty of the issuer or the borrower
  • Breach of contract,
  • The lender has granted concessions as a result of the borrower’s financial difficulty which the lender would not otherwise consider,
  • It is becoming probable that the borrower will enter bankruptcy or other financial reorganisation,
  • The disappearance of an active market for that financial asset because of financial difficulties,
  • The financial asset is purchased or originated at a deep discount that reflects the incurred credit losses.

It may not be possible to identify a single discrete event. It could be the combined effect of several events may have caused financial assets to become credit-impaired.

Food for thought – Interaction between definitions of ‘credit-impaired’ and ‘default’
The definition of ‘credit-impaired’ under IFRS 9 may differ from the entity’s definition of ‘default’ (see explanation here). However, an entity’s definition of default should be consistent with its credit risk management, and should consider qualitative factors. For example, many financial institutions apply regulatory definitions of default for accounting and regulatory purposes – e.g. those issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision under which a default is considered to have occurred when it is unlikely that the obligor will be able to repay its obligation. The assessment of whether such a definition is met may be based on similar criteria to those used for assessing whether an asset is credit-impaired. In these cases, the asset would be considered to be in default when it is credit-impaired. (IFRS 9.5.5.37)

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Example Disclosure financial instruments

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Example Disclosure financial instruments

The guidance for this example disclosure financial instruments is found here.

7 Financial assets and financial liabilities

This note provides information about the group’s financial instruments, including:

The group holds the following financial instruments: [IFRS 7.8]

Amounts in CU’000

Notes

2020

2019

Financial assets

Financial assets at amortised cost

– Trade receivables

7(a)

15,662

8,220

– Other financial assets at amortised cost

7(b)

4,598

3,471

– Cash and cash equivalents

7(e)

55,083

30,299

Financial assets at fair value through other comprehensive income (FVOCI)

7(c)

6,782

7,148

Financial assets at fair value through profit or loss (FVPL)

7(d)

13,690

11,895

Derivative financial instruments

– Used for hedging

12(a)

2,162

2,129

97,975

63,162
Example Disclosure financial instruments

Financial liabilities

Liabilities at amortised cost

– Trade and other payables1

7(f)

13,700

10,281

– Borrowings

7(g)

97,515

84,595

– Lease liabilities

8(b)

11,501

11,291

Derivative financial instruments

– Used for hedging

12(a)

766

777

– Held for trading at FVPL

12(a)

610

621

124,092

107,565

The group’s exposure to various risks associated with the financial instruments is discussed in note 12. The maximum exposure to credit risk at the end of the reporting period is the carrying amount of each class of financial assets mentioned above. [IFRS 7.36(a), IFRS 7.31, IFRS 7.34(c)]

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Excellent Study IFRS 9 Eligible Hedged items

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IFRS 9 Eligible Hedged items

the insured items of business risk exposures

Although the popular definition of hedging is an investment taken out to limit the risk of another investment, insurance is an example of a real-world hedge.

Every entity is exposed to business risks from its daily operations. Many of those risks have an impact on the cash flows or the value of assets and liabilities, and therefore, ultimately affect profit or loss. In order to manage these risk exposures, companies often enter into derivative contracts (or, less commonly, other financial instruments) to hedge them. Hedging can, therefore, be seen as a risk management activity in order to change an entity’s risk profile.

The idea of hedge accounting is to reduce (insure) this mismatch by changing either the measurement or (in the case of certain firm commitments) FRS 9 Eligible Hedged itemsrecognition of the hedged exposure, or the accounting for the hedging instrument.

The definition of a Hedged item

A hedged item is an asset, liability, firm commitment, highly probable forecast transaction or net investment in a foreign operation that

  1. exposes the entity to risk of changes in fair value or future cash flows and
  2. is designated as being hedged

The hedge item can be:

Only assets, liabilities, firm commitments and forecast transactions with an external party qualify for hedge accounting. As an exception, a hedge of the foreign currency risk of an intragroup monetary item qualifies for hedge accounting if that foreign currency risk affects consolidated profit or loss. In addition, the foreign currency risk of a highly probable forecast intragroup transaction would also qualify as a hedged item if that transaction affects consolidated profit or loss. These requirements are unchanged from IAS 39.

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Disclosure Financial risk management

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Disclosure Financial risk management

Disclosure financial risk management provides the guidance on the need for disclosure of the management policies, procedures and measurement practices in place at the operations within the reporting entity’s group of companies and an actual example of disclosures for financial risk management.

Disclosure Financial risk management guidance

Classes of financial instruments

Where IFRS 7 requires disclosures by class of financial instrument, the entity shall group its financial instruments into classes that are appropriate to the nature of the information disclosed and that take into account the characteristics of those financial instruments. The classes are determined by the entity and are therefore distinct from the categories of financial instruments specified in IFRS 9. Disclosure Financial risk management

As a minimum, the entity should distinguish between financial instruments measured at amortised cost and those measured at fair value, and treat as separate class any financial instruments outside the scope of IFRS 9. The entity shall provide sufficient information to permit reconciliation to the line items presented in the balance sheet. Guidance on classes of financial instruments and the level of required disclosures is provided in Appendix B to IFRS 7. [IFRS 7.6, IFRS 7.B1-B3]

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Disclosure financial assets and liabilities

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Disclosure financial assets and liabilities

– provides a narrative providing guidance on users of financial statements’ needs to present financial disclosures in the notes to the financial statements grouped in more logical orders. But there is and never will be a one-size fits all.

Here it has been decided to separately disclose financial assets and liabilities and non-financial assets and liabilities, because of the distinct different nature of these classes of assets and liabilities and the resulting different types of disclosures, risks and tabulations.

Disclosure financial assets and liabilities guidance

Disclosing financial assets and liabilities (financial instruments) in one note

Users of financial reports have indicated that they would like to be able to quickly access all of the information about the entity’s financial assets and liabilities in one location in the financial report. The notes are therefore structured such that financial items and non-financial items are discussed separately. However, this is not a mandatory requirement in the accounting standards.

Accounting policies, estimates and judgements

For readers of Financial Statements it is helpful if information about accounting policies that are specific to the entityDisclosure financial assets and liabilitiesand about significant estimates and judgements is disclosed with the relevant line items, rather than in separate notes. However, this format is also not mandatory. For general commentary regarding the disclosures of accounting policies refer to note 25. Commentary about the disclosure of significant estimates and judgements is provided in note 11.

Scope of accounting standard for disclosure of financial instruments

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IFRS 7 does not apply to the following items as they are not financial instruments as defined in paragraph 11 of IAS 32:

  1. prepayments made (right to receive future good or service, not cash or a financial asset)
  2. tax receivables and payables and similar items (statutory rights or obligations, not contractual), or
  3. contract liabilities (obligation to deliver good or service, not cash or financial asset).

While contract assets are also not financial assets, they are explicitly included in the scope of IFRS 7 for the purpose of the credit risk disclosures. Liabilities for sales returns and volume discounts (see note 7(f)) may be considered financial liabilities on the basis that they require payments to the customer. However, they should be excluded from financial liabilities if the arrangement is executory. the Reporting entity Plc determined this to be the case. [IFRS 7.5A]

Classification of preference shares

Preference shares must be analysed carefully to determine if they contain features that cause the instrument not to meet the definition of an equity instrument. If such shares meet the definition of equity, the entity may elect to carry them at FVOCI without recycling to profit or loss if not held for trading.

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IFRS vs US GAAP Financial assets

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IFRS vs US GAAP Financial assets – Both the FASB and the IASB have finalized major projects in the area of financial instruments. With the publication of IFRS 9, Financial Instruments, in July 2014, the IASB completed its project to replace the classification and measurement, as well as the impairment guidance for financial instruments. In January 2016, the FASB issued its new recognition and measurement guidance – Accounting Standards Update 2016-01, Financial Instruments–Overall: Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities, and in June 2016, the FASB issued its new impairment guidance – Accounting Standards Update 2016-13, Financial Instruments – Credit Losses (Topic 326).

The new classification and measurement guidance was effective for both US GAAP and IFRS as of … Read more