Notes on IFRS 01

Kedar Pande (Self Employed) (896 Points)

17 June 2009  

 

Objective
IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards sets out the procedures that an entity must follow when it adopts IFRSs for the first time as the basis for preparing its general purpose financial statements.
Definition of first-time adoption
A first-time adopter is an entity that, for the first time, makes an explicit and unreserved statement that its general purpose financial statements comply with IFRSs.
An entity may be a first-time adopter if, in the preceding year, it prepared IFRS financial statements for internal management use, as long as those IFRS financial statements were not and given to owners or external parties such as investors or creditors. If a set of IFRS financial statements was, for any reason, given to an external party in the preceding year, then the entity will already be considered to be on IFRSs, and IFRS 1 does not apply.
An entity can also be a first-time adopter if, in the preceding year, its published financial statements asserted:
  • Compliance with some but not all IFRSs.
  • Included only a reconciliation of selected figures from previous GAAP to IFRSs. (Previous GAAP means the GAAP that an entity followed immediately before adopting to IFRSs.)
However, an entity is not a first-time adopter if, in the preceding year, its published financial statements asserted:
  • Compliance with IFRSs even if the auditor's report contained a qualification with respect to conformity with IFRSs.
  • Compliance with both previous GAAP and IFRSs.
Effective date of IFRS 1
IFRS 1 applies if an entity's first IFRS financial statements are for a period beginning on or after 1 January 2004. Earlier application is encouraged.