IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements

Introduction

This standard prescribes the basis for presentation of general purpose financial statements to ensure comparability both with the entity’s financial statements of previous periods and with the financial statements of other entities. It sets out overall requirements for the presentation of financial statements, guidelines for their structure and minimum requirements for their content.

Contents of the financial statements

A complete set of financial statements comprises:

• a statement of financial position as at the end of the period,
• a statement of comprehensive income for the period,
• a statement of changes in equity for the period,
• a statement of cash flows for the period, and
• notes, comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information.

Going concern

When preparing financial statements, management shall make an assessment of an entity’s ability to continue as a going concern. An entity shall prepare financial statements on a going concern basis unless management either intends to liquidate the entity or to cease trading, or has no realistic alternative but to do so.

When management is aware of material uncertainties related to events or conditions that may cast significant doubt upon the entity’s ability to continue as a going concern, the entity shall disclose those uncertainties in the financial statements.  

Aggregation

An entity shall present separately each material class of similar items, i.e. all sales can be reported under the heading 'turnover'. An entity shall present separately items of a dissimilar nature or function unless they are immaterial.

Offsetting

An entity shall not offset assets and liabilities or income and expenses, unless required or permitted by an IFRS.

Comparatives

Except when IFRSs permit or require otherwise, an entity shall disclose comparative information in respect of the previous period for all amounts reported in the current period’s financial statements. An entity shall include comparative information for narrative and descriptive information when it is relevant to an understanding of the current period’s financial statements.

Notes

The notes shall:

• present information about the basis of preparation of the financial statements and the specific accounting policies used,
• disclose the information required by IFRSs that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements, and
• provide information that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements, but is relevant to an understanding of them.

Assumptions/judgements

An entity shall disclose, in the summary of significant accounting policies or other notes, the judgements that management has made in the process of applying the entity’s accounting policies and that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements.

An entity shall disclose information about the assumptions it makes about the future, and other major sources of estimation uncertainty at the end of the reporting period, that have a significant risk of resulting in a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next financial year.

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Tags:	financial statements;Going concern;aggregation;offsetting;notes;assumptions;judgements