No surprise to see that the saga around IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) lives on.  New SEC Chair Mary Schapiro implied that recent discussions may be wiped from the chalkboard (or at least significantly reconsidered), saying that she “will not necessarily feel bound by the existing roadmap that’s out for comment.”

As noted in the AICPA’s blog on IFRS, any delay is welcome when it comes to preparing for such a major change in standards.  As I discussed in my post on September 3 or last year, I had my own take on the situation and predicted that the existing timetable would not persist.   A shift of such enormous scope will take a great deal of patience and learning on the front end,  and it will not be easily accepted in the financial matrix of the United States.

Even so, we stand by our take in last year’s Perspectives article (Three Steps Financial Executives Should Take Towards IFRS) that getting that learning process underway can only help matters in the long run.  In that Perspetivce, we point to three key steps financial departments can take even this far away from implementation:  keep your radar on, get educated, and prepare to mobilize.  When the tide does eventually rise on IFRS, it will come with a litany of obstacles - but with all this back and forth, getting caught off guard shouldn’t be one of them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Globalization, Reporting standards, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.