DFS - IFRS/IAS Summaries available

Steve Collings

Hi all,

I have produced a summary of all the IFRS/IAS which has been exclusively written for AccountancyStudents.co.uk. The cost is £13.50 for registered members and £15.00 for non-registered members.

Please note that the publication includes ALL IFRS/IAS in issue, though not all of them are examinable at AAT. To purchase a copy please visit this link - the link is just underneath the "join us" logo.

Please note, those members who have paid to come to the DFS/Unit 10 seminar in Manchester on 4th April 2009 will receive a copy of this which is inclusive of the fee so no need to purchase if you're booked on the seminar.

Best wishes
Steve

Steve Collings

We have now included a link to the contents page and a summary of IAS 2 as a free sample so you have an idea how it looks.

Apologies for missing this!!

Best regards
Steve

Julia

Steve have to say I downloaded your guide out of interest and must say i am impressed with them!! As a BPP tutor for Financial reporting/audit I can wholeheartedly recommend them!

Julia

Gianni

Hi Steve,

How does this compare with A Student's Guide to IFRS by Clare Finch?

I have this book and use it as a reference tool fairly often. To be honest at £13.50 I'll probably buy this anyway but is it much different?

Steve Collings

First thanks to Julia for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Gianna, Bluewednesday will be able to vouch for me when I say that I was extremely conscious that I did not want my manual to be in competition with, or similar to Clare Finch's book (I asked Annette to have a look first before I sent it for publishing to make sure it was not too similar to Clare's book)). Clare is a friend of mine so my publication was not intended to run in tangent with her excellent book (reference to which I have made in my manual).

My manual is merely a summary of the technical content of each IFRS designed to be "flash cards". They don't contain mnemonics (now sure that's the right spelling) like Clare's book does, nor do they break each standard down into steps for students to deal with. There are illustrations where applicable to show how each standard works but my manual is merely a summary of the technical content of each one.If you go to the AccountancyStudents homepage there is a link to a summary of IAS 2 so you can see how it looks.

Best wishes
Steve

Bluewednesday

Having seen the whole thing I would say that I would recommend these technical summaries as an addition to Clare's book, not a replacement for it.

I used Clare's book for my final ACCA financial reporting paper and found the hints and tips given to learning a standard was invaluable.

As I mentioned to Steve, you couldn't use his summaries without actually knowing about the standard first. You need Clare's book for the taught phase and Steve's summaries for the revision!

troy

Hi,

Did i do something wrong?
I decided to buy a copy and the link says it is a download, so i paid my £15 and then it just kicked me off? Does this mean it is going to be posted out to me?
:confused1:

Steve Collings

That should not happen and I have referred this to our IT guy.

Please bear with me.

Regards
Steve

Barry

Hey Steve

I bought your IFRS summaries and can I just say they have made a complete difference to my DFS studies in that everything just seems to have clicked all at once:001_smile: I couldn't get my head around impairments but now I understand them.

Your advice and input to us DFS students is invaluable and you walk on water as far as I am concerned!! Bring on June.

Cheers mate:thumbup1:

Baz

Steve Collings

Hi Barry,

No problem. I am glad you found the manual helpful.

Just keep practising those questions between now and June.

Best wishes
Steve

Steve Collings

Re the problems encountered downloading my book. Apparently after the "checkout" you have to go to the download page. They are putting a message somewhere giving the link on the download page to avoid any further problems.

Best wishes
steve

Steve Collings

Hi All,

Just to clarify a point in my IFRS manual which a couple of people have asked about.

My manual refers to terminology such as 'non-controlling interests' and the 'statement of financial position' as well as 'statement of comprehensive income'.

I would just like to confirm that the terminology adopted in the manual is in accordance with the revised IAS 1 terminology which was brought in last year. The AAT are not going to adopt such terminology until the December 2009 sittings.

Therefore those of you who are studying DFS who have purchased my manual should continue to adopt the following (certainly for the June 09 sitting):

Instead of..........................Continue to use

Non controlling interests...........Minority interests
Statement of financial position...Balance Sheet
Statement of Comp. Income......Income Statement


I adopted the revisions to IAS 1 in order to keep the manual as up to date as possible as eventually AAT will adopt IAS 1 revisions and CIMA will also bring in the IFRS 3 amendments which have also been adopted in my manual which are not assessable at AAT.

Best wishes
Steve

Steve Collings

As an update, if you want to get a copy then you're better off purchasing now because the IFRS summary publishes in a few weeks and the price almost doubles!

Best wishes
Steve

cornflower

Hey steve

We bought your summaries for work as we are going to switch to IFRS as our parent company is going on a market. Are there many differences between UK and IFRS.

Also in your IFRS summary you state that an asset could only be classed as held for sale if it is ready for immediate sale ; how does that affect a building as we are selling our property at work.

carrie

Steve Collings

I wrote an article about this issue which you might find helpful.

If you are reporting under IFRS then your company can only class the building as held for sale if it meets the five criteria in IFRS 5 which are set out on page 19 of my IFRS manual. Note, assets held for sale that meet the criteria in IFRS 5 are NOT depreciated.

If reporting under UK GAAP there is no UK equivalent to IFRS 5 so you should consult the provisions in FRS 11 where you have an asset that you are commited to sell by checking if it is impaired and writing it down to recoverable amount if it is impaired.

Regards
Steve

cornflower

Thanks steve but why do you not depreciate the asset held for sale?

Steve Collings

Because the asset will be stated at market value (fair value).

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Can't say as I'm entirely convinced by it, but BPP teach that depreciation is an allocation of the cost of the asset matched to sales. Therefore if you're not using the item, it's not used to make revenue and therefore isn't depreciated.

Steve Collings

Adam,

BPP make a valid point and a point in which I illustrated a similar answer to another poster on here. In order to meet the available for sale criteria, one of the criteria in IFRS 5 is that the asset has to be available for immediate sale. Therefore as depreciation is essentially the "consumption" of the asset, then if Cornflower's business property is still being used then it cannot be classed as held for sale because not all the IFRS 5 criteria are being met. Depreciation must therefore continue because the entity is still consuming the asset.

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Yes, I see what they mean - it wasn't until last week that I heard it put that way so I'm still sort of thinking it how I used to (which isn't actually that much different, I'd just never linked it to sales before).

I'm almost bought by it!

That said, if I've done badly in my Financial Reporting mock I may just blame BPP's teaching and go back to thinking it through in a similar vein to Frank Sinatra!:laugh:

Steve Collings

Ha ha! I'm sure there's been many an accounting standard invented in exams!!

I think what BPP are getting at is interlinking the definition of an asset in the IASB Framework Document to a non current asset in IAS 16.

In the Framework, the definition of an asset is "a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events from which future economic benefits are expected to flow".

The key words are "future economic benefits" which are, more often than not, sales revenue. You can only recognise a non current asset in accordance with both the Framework and IAS 16 if the asset will generate (or contribute to generating) revenue (for example an item of plant in a manufacturing company). That is why I suspect BPP are using the sales illustration.

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Yes I can imagine that there has! Although considering I get the IFRS as an open book for the exam, I guess I ought to stay close to the rules!

The more times I see it, the more it makes sense and on the whole it's probably the best way to demonstrate it. It's just strange the first time you get hit with a new way of looking at things.

Haha those asset and liability definitions! We learnt them by heart for DFS so come my ACA course last week when the class was asked for the definition, as the only AAT-er it was quite nice to be able to reel that one off from memory and watch everyone turn round and look to see where I was reading it from!

Steve Collings

Well done!!

I remember the days when an asset was simply "something you own"!! Now it's not so easy.......

AdamR

Especially when they chuck IAS 32 at you:crying:

Steve Collings

Financial instruments are one of the most complex standards (closely followed by IAS 19 'Employee benefits').

With IAS 32 (Financial instruments: presentation) just watch for an obligation to pay cash on the financial instrument either via dividends (eg preference shares) or by way of redemption at a future date. If there is an obligation to pay cash, present the financial instrument as a liability. If there isn't an obligation to pay cash, then present them within equity. IAS 32 is a companion standard to IAS 39(Financial instruments: recognition and measurement) but before you can deal with IAS 39 you should therefore always look to IAS 32 FIRST before accounting for a financial liability because correct classification as a liability or equity is crucial. Also remember that where you have preference shares, dividends paid on such are classed as 'finance' costs in the entity's statement of financial position (balance sheet).

Once you've done a few questions on financial instruments it should all fall into place.

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Steve Collings wrote: »

Financial instruments are one of the most complex standards (closely followed by IAS 19 'Employee benefits').

Oh good - it wasn't just the fact I was half asleep that made that subject difficult!

I remember the difference of "contractual obligation" as opposed to "present obligation" from the framework and that's about it. At a real push, I may be able to point out if an item is an instrument and if so, what type but I'm not sure I could do much else at the moment.

I don't think a lot of it's really relevant to small businesses is it? :001_unsure:I got the impression it was the big corporations and banks that would have the main bulk of the compliance work. Maybe that's why I tuned out!

Steve Collings

Hi Adam,

The full standards are for large corporations. Small businesses in the UK who report under IFRS use EU adopted IFRS which is similar in content but tweaked slightly to be more relevant (remember IFRS 'relevant and reliable' which is essentially the same as the UK's 'true and fair').

Smaller entities in the UK do not have to adopt IFRS but very soon they will do (the standard is due out anytime now). Again, this will be similar to the current FRSSE but EU adopted as full IFRS for smaller entities would be too vast. However in studies you'll always use full IFRS.

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Oh is that those Exposure Drafts?

Much as I like the FRSSE and FRS because that's what I use at work, I guess having International Standards for all companies is for the best.

Although as the only person studying any qualification at work, will I get all the compliance questions?!:001_unsure:

Steve Collings

Yes they are the exposure drafts which are exposed for comment from the profession. Once the comment period closes, the standard setters deliberate the feedback which is largely received from the professional institutes (ACCA, ICAEW etc) though practitioners can also comment and those comments taken on board by the standards committee. They are then issued as a standard.

In UK GAAP such exposure drafts are known as FRED's (financial reporting exposure drafts).

IFRS for SMEs has gne through all the deliberations and the standard is due out now. I suspect it will apply to SMEs for accounting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2010 - which is when the fun really begins especially as the cash flow statement will become mandatory for SMEs!!

Regards
Steve

AdamR

Doing cashflows will be fun, I'll look forward to that.

Ah, plenty of time left under FRSSE then. I take it a watered down IFRS 1 will be in there so restating prior years - fun fun!

Steve Collings

IFRS 1 will apply to the SME sector. Worryingly some practitioners seem to think that a switch to IFRS will simply be a change in accounting policy (per IAS 8) which is a big no no!! It's a whole new financial reporting basis so I'll be running a few seminars on the switchover throughout the country when the standard is issued by the IASB.

Regards
Steve