IFRS advisory services

IFRS 15 establishes the principles for reporting useful information regarding the amount, nature, timing and uncertainty of revenue and cash flows arising from an entity’s contracts with customers. The new standard also requires such entities to provide users of financial statements with more informative, relevant disclosures. The standard provides a single, principles-based, five-step model to be applied to all contracts with customers and supersedes all existing revenue guidance under IFRS. On July 22, 2015, the IASB met and confirmed its proposal to defer the effective date of IFRS 15 by one year. Accordingly, entities will apply IFRS 15 for annual reporting periods beginning on or after January 1, 2018.  Early application of the standard continues to be permitted. The IASB plans to issue the amendment regarding the effective date of IFRS 15 in September 2015.

The final version of IFRS 9, issued in July 2014, is the IASB's replacement of IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. The standard includes requirements for recognition and measurement of financial assets and liabilities, impairment of financial assets, derecognition and general hedge accounting. IFRS 9 is effective for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2018 with earlier application permitted.

To learn more about IFRS 9, read our latest blog post, Learn the standards: Adding IFRS 9 to your financial reporting repertoire, or visit the Deloitte Centre for Financial Reporting.

Currently under IFRS, IFRS 4 Insurance Contracts, provides the guiding principles for accounting for insurance contracts; however, in recent years stakeholders have noted that in light of the increasingly international nature of the industry and the uncertain exposure such contracts create, the existing principles do not address specific insurance issues, thereby lacking the information users require to understand the insurer’s financial position, performance and risk exposure. Consequently, the IASB has undertaken a comprehensive project on the accounting for insurance contracts with an aim to provide a single principle-based standard to account for all types of insurance contracts, including reinsurance contracts that an insurer holds. Although a proposed effective date has not yet been released, redeliberations on the proposed standard are ongoing.

Currently under IFRS, IAS 17 Leases prescribes the accounting and disclosures for both lessees and lessors in relation to leases. The existing model with IAS 17 does not require a lessee to recognize lease assets and liabilities for certain leases. This model has been criticized for failing to meet the needs of investors and analysts as the model does not always provide a faithful representation of the underlying transaction(s). As a result, the IASB and the FASB jointly began conducting a new project on leases, with the objective of developing a new lease standard that will establish the principles that entities would apply to report useful information to investors and analysts about the amount, timing and uncertainty of cash flows arising from a lease. Central to the application of the new standard will be identifying what constitutes a “lease.” The IASB expects to issue this new standard in Q4 of 2015.