IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements

IAS 1 

Presentation of Financial Statements (summary)

This Standard prescribes the basis for presentation of general purpose financial statements to ensure comparability both with the entity’s financial statements of previous periods and with the financial statements of other entities. It sets out overall requirements for the presentation of financial statements, guidelines for their structure and minimum requirements for their content.

A complete set of financial statements comprises:

(a) a statement of financial position as at the end of the period;

(b) a statement of comprehensive income for the period;

(c) a statement of changes in equity for the period;

(d) a statement of cash flows for the period;

(e) notes, comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information; and

(f) a statement of financial position as at the beginning of the earliest comparative period when an entity applies an accounting policy retrospectively or makes a retrospective restatement of items in its financial statements, or when it reclassifies items in its financial statements.

An entity shall prepare financial statements on a going concern basis unless management either intends to liquidate the entity or to cease trading, or has no realistic alternative but to do so.

An entity shall present a complete set of financial statements (including comparative information) at least annually.

An entity shall clearly identify the financial statements and distinguish them from other information in the same published document.

IAS 1 requires an entity to present, in a statement of changes in equity, all owner changes in equity. All non-owner changes in equity (ie comprehensive income) are required to be presented in one statement of comprehensive income or in two statements (a separate income statement and a statement of comprehensive income). Components of comprehensive income are not permitted to be presented in the statement of changes in equity.

An entity shall disclose, in the summary of significant accounting policies or other notes, the judgements, apart from those involving estimations.

An entity shall disclose information about the assumptions it makes about the future, and other major sources of estimation uncertainty at the end of the reporting period, that have a significant risk of resulting in a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next financial year.

An entity shall disclose information that enables users of its financial statements to evaluate the entity’s objectives, policies and processes for managing capital. **This extract has been prepared by IASC Foundation staff and has not been approved by the IASB