Closing Out 2018

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13 Dec, 2018

Welcome to our one-stop guide covering the issues relevant to the preparation of December 2018 annual reports.

The FRC's annual review of corporate reporting and ESMA’s common enforcement priorities provide areas of regulatory scrutiny which reporters of all sizes should focus on within in the coming reporting season.

Whether this is reporting of risks associated with ‘Brexit’, clear presentation and appropriate reconciliation of APMs or proper disclosure of the judgements and estimates applied in preparing financial statements; there are many things to consider.  

Significantly, two new accounting Standards, IFRS 9 on financial instruments and IFRS 15 on revenue come into force for the first time and the FRC expects companies to apply these major standards properly and provide sufficient disclosure of their impact. The FRC has published a series of thematic reviews to help companies improve disclosures in this area.

With the mandatory effective date of IFRS 16 on leases being only one year away, both the FRC and ESMA expect companies to provide both qualitative and quantitative company-specific disclosures on the effects of their adoption.

In addition the strategic report in general remains an area that the FRC continually challenges in its monitoring work.

Companies should ensure that their reports include a fair review of the company’s business that is a balanced and comprehensive analysis of both performance and position. Those with complex supplier arrangements are expected to disclose the nature and amount and impact on liquidity and those within the scope of the EU Non-Financial Reporting (NFR) Directive should provide a separate non-financial information statement within the strategic report to satisfy its requirements.

With initiatives from players such as the TCFD bringing climate reporting into the spotlight, companies are expected to disclose the impact on a company’s operations on the environment and how environmental matters may affect a company’s development, performance and position.

And, with the issue of the disclosure of dividend policy and practice gaining recent traction, companies are reminded to report clearly in one place their policies in this area.

Our Closing Out 2018 publication covers all these topics and more, providing an invaluable guide to the issues affecting today’s corporate reporting.

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