Accounting alert — September 2012

Published on: 04 Sep 2012

The Financial Reporting Bill has been introduced to New Zealand Parliament, proposing significant changes to New Zealand’s financial reporting framework.

As signalled in September 2011, these proposals:

  • remove financial reporting requirements for most small and medium sized companies
  • introduce financial reporting requirements for registered charities and large partnerships
  • remove the obligation to prepare parent financial statements where group financial statements are prepared
  • reduce the preparation time for financial statements from five months to three months.

A further change was included in the Bill allowing large New Zealand privately owned companies to opt out of appointing an auditor if passed by resolution approved by 95% of voting shareholders.

This alert also provides an update on the New Zealand Financial Market Authority's (FMA's) final guidance note on Disclosing non-GAAP financial information, issued on 1 September 2012. The guidance note is largely consistent with the previous consultation draft, but now includes an illustrative profit announcement including the non-GAAP measure "underlying profit" as an aid for issuers.

In this issue:

  • Financial Reporting Bill proposes changes to financial reporting requirements
  • Final guidance note issued by the FMA on non-GAAP financial information (including 'underlying profit')
  • New Publication – IFRSs in Your Pocket 2012

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