Summary of IAS 40 Investment Property

Many accountants falsely believe that there’s only one standard that deals with long-term tangible assets: IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment. While it’s true that you need to apply IAS 16 for most of your long-term tangible assets, it’s not the one ruling all. I tried to falsify this myth some time ago here. Except … Read more

How The Groups Change

Group accounts are a very popular topic and yes, I can understand it as it’s a main topic for many accounting exams. I have written a few articles about it, including: Intro to group accounts and consolidation; Example: How to consolidate; and a few summaries of standards dealing with these issues, such as IAS 28, IFRS 3, … Read more

What are directly attributable costs?

When you acquire a long-term asset, you can include directly attributable costs to the initial measurement of its cost. Although IFRS define directly attributable expenses quite clearly and provide a few examples, there are many different items we are not sure about. In this article, I decided to look at directly attributable expenses with a … Read more

IFRSbox Recommends: Why and What to Read

I am a passionate reader. I read A LOT. I read EVERY SINGLE DAY, usually 1 or 2 hours (I almost never watch TV though). It makes about 100+ books plus tons of articles each year. I started to read when I was 4. That time, I read only fairy tales and stories in my … Read more

How to Account for Decommissioning Provision under IFRS

When a company acquires certain types of long-term assets, it sometimes has an obligation to remove these assets after the end of their useful lives and restore the site. Typical example of such an asset is an oil rig or a nuclear power plant. When an oil rig, a power plant or similar construction fulfills … Read more

Accounting for discounts under IFRS

Discounts are probably the most popular selling tool in business. Without a doubt, many companies discount the price for their products or services in various forms, for example: Buy 1, get 1 free (and modifications), Get 10% off for purchases over CU 100 (and modifications), Gift vouchers, Settlement discounts (bonus for early payment or for … Read more

IFRS 9 vs. US GAAP – Coming Closer?

We all know that IASB and US standard’s setting body FASB work together in order to prepare a single set of global accounting standards. Recently issued standard on revenue recognition, IFRS 15 and its American counterpart FAS 606 are a good example of these mutual efforts. On the other hand, these two bodies are not … Read more

How to Test Goodwill for Impairment

When a company acquires control over another company, then often a goodwill arises, too. You should present it as an intangible asset, but when you think about it carefully, a goodwill is not a typical asset, because unlike other assets, you cannot sell it to somebody, you cannot use it in your production process or … Read more

IFRS 16 Leases – Summary

In January 2016, the new standard about lease accounting IFRS 16 was issued and it introduced a few major changes. The most significant are: New definition of the lease can cause that some contracts previously treated as “service contracts” can now be treated as “lease contracts”, Accounting for leases in the lessee’s financial statements changed … Read more