much time would be needed, and
that hiring outside consultants
could help make up for lost time.
U.S. organizations have an opportunity to learn from those mistakes
and plan ahead to avoid them.
As we’ve learned in Europe, at
its most basic, the more agile a
system’s data access and reporting
functions, the more readily it will
deal with the transition. If access to
information and reporting changes
requires significant IT resources,
the process can be protracted and
expensive. In the ideal scenario,
the business user is empowered to
access the information required to
report either in GAAP or IFRS, with
little to no IT intervention.
FROM PAGE 14
present local GAAP, IFRS adjust-
ments and IFRS final position on
the same page; delivery of such a
report should require just a limited
amount of design work and not re-
quire IT intervention.
Finally, seek a vendor that has
experience in implementing IFRS, a
track record of embracing change,
and a financial system that is re-
sponsive to your ever-changing
needs. AT
IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT ...
Once you’ve asked yourself the
questions above as a starting point,
some of you may be grimacing at
the state of your system in the face
of the coming changes. Those organizations with rigid systems, where
access to the data required for IFRS
reporting is difficult or inaccessible
altogether, face another challenge
— how to best select a replacement system that will enable them
to meet IFRS requirements.
When evaluating the structure
of a potential replacement system,
consideration must be given to four
key areas: system structure, data
capture, reporting and analytics,
and supplier characteristics.
System structure will dictate how
you handle an IFRS adjustment
— outside of the general ledger
system, on a new chart-of-account
line, in a separate dimension, or in
a separate entity for IFRS. Any of
these is acceptable, but your system
must be capable of delivering any
or all of these options as required.
Data capture implies that no matter the structural method or combinations of methods employed, the
data-capture mechanism should
reflect changes made to the chart
of accounts, dimension or entity,
quickly and with no intervention.
Operational, financial management and audit reports should
change automatically in response
to changes in the chart-of-account
structure. In a multi-GAAP environment, systems must be able to
