Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur’s Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.
With the recent economic upheaval, one of the most significant announcements from the Securities and Exchange Commission seems to have been put on the back burner, or at least may no longer be in the forefront of most CEO’s and CFO’s minds.
The SEC recently announced its proposed roadmap for the eventual conversion of U.S publicly traded companies from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
There are several factors that suggest IFRS will be made mandatory in the near future, including the SEC’s expressions of continued support for a unified set of accounting standards.
The initial plan calls for allowing the largest of the multinational companies to adopt and report financial results in IFRS starting in 2010. Mandatory reporting for large, mid-sized and small companies would begin in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. Right now this will impact public companies, but private companies should be aware of how it could potentially filter down to their companies.
PKF Texas has written a white paper detailing the impact of the impending conversion which can be found on our website at www.pkftexas.com/IFRS.