Financial Reporting

Book Review: IFRS Student Manual 2010

Steve Collings reviews the new book IFRS Student Manual 2010 by PWC (published by CCH).

Students of corporate reporting papers have the arduous and often complicated task of revising accounting standards.  With most jurisdictions these days adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) due to global convergence, the difficulty of this task is often accentuated by the fact that a lot of students currently work with domestic Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP), for example, UK Financial Reporting Standards (FRS), Statements of Standard Accounting Practice (SSAP) and Urgent Issues Task Force abstracts (UITF).  The result is that due to the major accountancy bodies now examining corporate reporting papers under IFRS, students are required to go ‘back to basics’ and learn an entirely new financial reporting framework for the purposes of their examinations.

CCH has recently published a book entitled IFRS Student Manual 2010 which has been written by the Christopher Nobes who is Professor of Accounting at the Royal Hollway, University of London with technical input from the technical writing team at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.  Packed with worked examples of how the standards work in real-life, this manual gets to the heart of the technicalities of the IFRS and IAS in an attempt to convey the difficult technical aspects of the IFRS to students.

Unlike traditional accounting standard manuals, which work through each standard in order and merely regurgitate the content of the official standards, this publication is arranged in a more logical and user-friendly way.  Aimed specifically at students and tutors of corporate reporting papers, the publication is split into the following areas:

·         Part 1 – Introduction, Concepts and Basic Standards.

·         Part 2 – Assets.

·         Part 3 – Financial Instruments.

·         Part 4 – Liabilities, Equity and Revenue.

·         Part 5 – Consolidated Financial Statements.

·         Part 6 – Disclosures and First-Time Adoption of IFRS.

What distinguishes this publication from other publications on IFRS is the fact that the publication has been produced in such a way to provide consistency in the information which each chapter conveys to the student.  Each chapter has been written as follows:

·         Introducing a topic.

·         Outlining all the main IFRS requirements.

·         Giving explanations of them.

·         Providing numerical and other examples.

·         Including illustration from real IFRS company reports.

The book starts by outlining the work of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and looks at the IASB’s structure and hierarchy as well as defining the IASB’s objectives.  Students of corporate reporting papers are required to gain an understanding of the work of the IASB and the process they adopt in developing and revising IFRS.  The book then looks at the IASB’s Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements.  Again, this is an important area for corporate reporting students as the Framework is pivotal to the IASB in developing future IFRS and assisting the IASB in its review of existing IFRS.  The book then goes into the heart of each IFRS/IAS and provides detailed illustrations of how the standard works, as well as looking at real-life excerpts of financial statements of listed companies.

Priced at a very reasonable £38, this manual is a ‘must buy’ for any student of corporate reporting papers and can be purchased direct from CCH or from Amazon.

Overall Rating: Excellent. 5-Star Rating.

About the Reviewer

Steve Collings, FMAAT FCCA DipIFRS is the audit and technical director at Leavitt Walmsley Associates Ltd and a freelance technical writer.  He is also the author of ‘The Core Aspects of IFRS and IAS’ and has published several articles on financial reporting and auditing issues in the accounting media and lectures on financial reporting and audit related content.