Historical Evolution of IFRS Reporting
Historical Evolution of IFRS Reporting
Abstract
By placing the financial reporting in its business background, a better understanding of the accounting world is
reflected by managers. This paper provides a historical evolution of the financial reporting under International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from a professional and academic literature review. It also ensures a
history of contemporary accounting dilemmas by disclosing the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of
the financial information. As a result of improving the quality of financial reporting, the adoption of IFRS is
considered the main output of the globalisation. The primary purpose of the IASB is to apply a single set of
global accounting standards, leading to the highest level of reported financial information quality. These rules
are followed by an increasing number of listed companies around the world. The findings show that mastering
accounting information has to be consolidated on a solid financial reporting according to IFRS or the national
rules in force. By presenting economic substance rather than legal substance, IFRS standards involve the timely
recognition of losses, diminishing managerial discretion and smoothing revenue management. Concerning the
digital reporting, XRBL appeared to revolutionize the management and financial reporting of accounting data.
All these issues provide a challenge for the future research concerning the financial reporting under IFRS.
Keywords: financial reporting, quality standards, historical evolution of IFRS
Acknowledgment: The work of the authors was supported by the project "ANTREPRENORDOC", Contract no.
36355/23.05.2019, financed by The Human Capital Operational Programme 2014-2020 (POCU), Romania.
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Date of Submission: 02-03-2021 Date of Acceptance: 15-03-2021
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I. INTRODUCTION
A famous philosopher, Karl Max, states that there is no business without accounting, except for the
ancient world (Walton, 2013). Accounting through the results obtained, highlights and makes possible the
understanding and the management of the company. Regarding the emerging countries, the lack of accounting
knowledge, the independent auditors to verify financial statements and the resources needed represent the main
impediment to the economic progress (El-Helaly, 2020). In more details, managers can know the accounting of
some companies only in terms of financial reporting, and not the department itself (Downes, 2018). Through
financial reporting, an overview of the company is provided, regarding the field of activity, its structure and the
financial situation of the entity at a given time (Houqe, 2018).
To understand the importance of the historical evolution of the financial reporting under IFRS, the next
question is asked: Which is the aim of the introduction of the financial reporting under IFRS? The answer is
found in all the steps taken in order to improve the financial reporting, from the first centuries to the present.
This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 is the core introduction of financial reporting and it comprises the
background and the historical development. It covers the historical evolution of financial reporting from the
ancient reporting to the global reporting under international rules. Therefore, it is presented the conceptual
framework of International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the financial statements of the listed
companies. Section 3 covers the types of actors in financial reporting. Section 4 provides an useful background
concerning financial reporting under IFRS worldwide and IFRS in Europe. Section 4 involves the challenges
brought by the introduction of the project XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) in order to increase
the accuracy of standardized data. Section 6 comprises a discussion about how financial reporting is influenced
by the impact of IFRS and its role in the transparency of financial statements and Section 7 resumes the general
conclusions of the present research.
helping in the decision-making process. The previous literature (Casta, 1989) shows that accounting
normalization is defined as a harmonization of the presentation of financial statements that was not possible
until the eighteenth century. With the evolution of accounting, the annual financial statements were correlated
with the Florentine business records. The literature captures the following stages in the evolution of financial
reporting:
Luca Paciolo [1494] - established equality between cash accounts and capital accounts;
Colbert [1763] - recorded the notion of balance sheet, for the first time, in France;
De la Porte [1912] - highlighted the classification of accounts of owners, things and people;
Edmond Degrange [1793] - introduced the theory of accounts of goods, house, received effects, the effect of the
account of payment (Profit & Loss Account, P&P account);
Quincz L.J. [1817] - amended the cash account and the Profit & Loss Account in the cashier's account and the
capital and property account;
Cerboni [1873] - introduced separate accounts: owner accounts and business accounts;
Schrott Joseph [1881] - introduced the following forms of accounts: private equity accounts and total capital
accounts;
Littleton (1966) divides the presentation of financial statements in financial information recorded in
double-entry accounts, with separate accounting records and financial information recorded in double-entry
accounts but which are not presented in separate accounts. Moreover, Chartfield (1977) argues that the first
were British traders, who began to present the balance sheet separately from the accounting books (accounting
books, Eng.). Over time, the purpose of financial reporting has shifted from fairness control to the chronological
presentation of a company's assets and liabilities.
For the first time, in 1673, France introduced a financial reporting model that includes the annual
balance sheet used against bankruptcies. Later, in 1807, the French model was part of Napoleon's Commercial
Code. To report profitability, the Profit Reporting Statement is taken into account by the 16th Amendment to the
US Constitution. In Romania, the first balance sheet was presented in The Commercial Rule by E.I. Nikifor
(1873). After 1900, financial reporting was normalized by several bankruptcies and merchant reforms, and most
firms began publishing parts of their accounting information. The British market began to publish more
financial information than required by law (Edwards, 1989). Over time, the improved accounting methods have
led to real changes in accounting. In Romania, the greatest impact on the accounting system was achieved by IT
systems (Morosan-Danila, 2015). Richard Stone and Wassily Leontiev (1938) were the initiators of discussions
on national accounting systems. With the Accounting Congress in Paris (1967), some authors such as Kirschen
S (Belgium) and Paul I. (France) continued to influence accounting systems (Demetrescu, 1972).
companies. Therefore, large companies can easily differentiate the measurement of economic performance from
the measurement of tax profit. The real profit of a company can be measured accurately only in the context in
which the firm has settled the resources and the owners share all the money (Walton, 1995). Thus, at the end of
the year, the profit is reported based on an unproven estimate.
2.3. Conceptual framework of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)
The private organization, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), was established in
1973 in London. The IASB issues a set of standards that are used to prepare financial statements, namely:
International Accounting Standards (IASs) have been issued by the IASB (2001) as well as International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). Currently, the term IFRS refers to the set of rules (IAS / IFRS). The
IASB (1989) conceptual framework introduces the objectives of financial information, qualitative characteristics
and components of financial statements.
The original form of this project was entitled "Conceptual Framework for the Preparation and
Presentation of Financial Statements", Which gradually developed, trying to reach a project of convergence
with American standards (US GAAP, eng.) and consolidation with financial standards (FASB). The attributes of
financial information are represented by the qualitative characteristics of financial reporting, namely relevance
and faithful representation. According to the IASB conceptual framework, the relevance of financial information
must have predictive value and confirmatory value. At the same time, the accurate representation of financial
information must be complete and neutral (Tarca, 2020).
To enhance the quality of the above characteristics, the IASB has introduced the following features of
financial reporting: comparability, verifiability, timeliness and understanding the financial information.
Accounting information is useful insofar as it is current and relevant. The topicality of the accounting
information includes estimates and other uncertainties that lead to a real tension. Another way to highlight the
importance of the characteristics of financial information highlights the fact that the substance takes precedence
over form in reporting under IFRS (Beest and Mraam, 2006). According to the ISA (International Standards of
Audit), the preparation of financial statements involves rather difficult judgment, taking into account the risk
involved in estimating future income. These judgments are based on the choice of accounting methods that
involve certain choices made by certain people in the company. In this case, it can be explained why the
government is involved in accounting regulations, namely, for the proper functioning of the economy.
Figure 1 shows the IASB IASB-Standard-setting process, from the research point to the effective date of the
new IFRS.
Figure 1: IASB-Standard-setting process, from the research point to the effective date
DOI: 10.35629/8028-1003021926 [Link] 21 | Page
A Historical Approach To The Financial Reporting Under Ifrs
interim reports. In the public sector, the reports are presented each year often explaining a single source of
income and its accounting consequences, being presented as a multitude of individual reports (Kidwell and
Lowensohn, 2019). Often, in the public sector, no distinction is made between short-term expenditure and long-
term expenditure.
Council Directive IV of 25 July 1978, pursuant to Article 54 (3) (g) of the Treaty, on the annual
accounts of certain forms of company (78/660 / EEC), contains the accounting rules for when preparing and
presenting the financial statements of legal financial entities (individual accounts). The 7th Directive, of June
13, 1983, pursuant to art. 54 para. (3) lit. (g) of the Treaty on consolidated accounts (83/349 / EEC) lays down
the basic rules for the preparation and presentation of the financial statements of a company regarded as an
economic entity, usually a group of individual legal entities but interdependent in terms of economic (group or
consolidated accounts). Even under these conditions, when the degree of comparability of the financial
statements has increased considerably, there are still uncovered differences, given that these accounting rules in
the stated directives have not been sufficiently detailed (Kieso et al., 2020). It happens that the harmonizing
effects of directives are counteracted by discretionary national requirements. In 1995, the European Commission
modified the accounting strategy by adhering to the IASB standards, in order to strengthen European reporting
requirements. In June 2000, the European Commission proposed the requirement to use IFRS for the
consolidated financial statements of all listed European companies, a proposal made by the IAS Regulation
(2202/1608) in June 2002.
IFRSs, issued by the IASB, are validated by an approval mechanism to ensure compliance with EU
public policies. This clearance mechanism is based on a two-tier structure: a regulatory level (Accounting
Regulatory Committee, CRA) and an expert level (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, EFRAG).
The CRA decides whether to recommend the European Commission to adopt or reject an EU application
standard, and EFRAG advises the European Commission on the technical assessment of individual IFRSs for
application in the EU.
In 1995, the EU established a new accounting strategy, namely accession to the IAS instead of further
developing specific European accounting standards. Later, in 2000, the plan to request the IAS for consolidated
financial statements was announced and since 2001, the EU has applied the Fair Value Directive which
allows/requires the measurement of the fair value of specific items in the balance sheet. One year later, the EU
approved the IAS regulation, and in 2003, the Modernization Directive was approved, which highlights the
developments in IFRS in the fourth and seventh directives, in order to reduce incompatibilities between
European accounting rules and IFRS standards.
Since 2005, all listed companies apply IFRS and entities that were exceptions to this rule have been
applying IFRS since 2007. The adoption of IFRS in the European Union has increased the credibility of the
IASB worldwide (Brown, 2013). The number of countries adopting IFRS has increased to 175 and the number
of countries is constantly growing (IASB, 2020)
The IAS Regulation applies only to listed companies, and the European Commission has left it to the
Member States to decide on the extension of IFRS to unlisted companies. As mentioned above, one problem that
has had an impact on European companies is that the EU does not approve all IFRSs issued by the IASB.
Following pressure from French banks, the Accounting Regulatory Committee excluded part of IAS 39 with
respect to the measurement of financial instruments. In determining the basis on which their accounts are drawn
up, EU listed companies are required to specify whether they have complied with EU-approved IFRS standards.
This also created problems at the US level, when the SEC approved the use of IFRS standards issued by the
IASB, without reconciliation. In order to equate the standards applied with GAAP standards, listed companies
must state that they comply with the IFRSs issued by the IASB, and this must be included in the audit report.
At the level of the European Union, Hamberg et al., (2011) analyze the mandatory adoption of IFRS,
within the INTACCT project (European Revolution of IFRS: Compliance, Consequences and Political Lessons).
It was concluded that the effects of adopting IFRS will never be uniform, due to different incentives from
developers, but also from the method of application (Picker et al., 2019). Regarding the adoption of IFRS, it has
a considerable impact on the company's costs (Hail et al., 2010). Regulators argue that IFRS improves the
quality and comparability of global financial reporting, suggesting that these audit costs may be reduced as a
first result of adoption (Choi et al., 2018; De George et al., 2013).
V. DIGITAL REPORTING
Digital reporting has begun to develop as part of the XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language)
project, which provides an electronic format for financial reporting to increase the accuracy of standardized
data. In this context, XRBL appeared to revolutionize the management and financial reporting of accounting
data (Cohen et al., 2005). Instead of treating accounting information as a cumulative text, XBRL provides an
identification tag for each individual piece of information, such as individual accounts in a general chart of
accounts. The labels are read by the computer and automatically process the related financial information by the
software. These specific labels are called working taxonomies, like dictionaries and coexist for financial
reporting purposes (Ahmi and Nasir, 2019). Therefore, a viable solution to link IFRS and national reporting
taxonomies is XBRL. The only problem arises when national jurisdictions need their own taxonomies to reflect
their local accounting regulations. However, one possible solution would be for XBRL to automatically convert
the taxonomy to a general IFRS standard. Once the appropriate XBRL taxonomies are established and data are
collected accordingly, different types of reports using different subsets of data can be produced with minimal
effort. The accounting department can generate internal and reliable management reports, financial statements
for publication, taxes and other regulatory records, as well as credit reports for borrowers. Consequently, time-
consuming data processing processes are eliminated and errors are incorporated, in order to improve financial
data through automatic checks made by XBRL (Beerbaum et al., 2019). The standardized format and universal
reading language will open the access of stakeholders to compare the reported financial information. In the 19th
century, the IASC accepted the proposal to support XRBL and IT reporting, even though the benefits of XRBL
were not fully provided. The IASB's consistent efforts to balance the information disclosed were not sufficient,
given the large number of detailed disclosure requirements. A CFA study reports that most companies disclose
excessive or redundant financial information rather than the reliable content of traditional financial reporting (La
Torre et al., 2018).
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The historical approach of the financial reporting under IFRS comprises the key for the question
research and the high quality of the financial reporting worldwide represents the main output of the
globalization. The objective of this paper is to explain consistently the sources of financial reporting in the
accounting environment and the actual framework of financial reporting under IFRS. A consistent review, of
what the financial information flow is for and how is checked by governments or the other actors of financial
reporting, represents the first step in order to deepen the knowledge about the root of financial reporting.
Furthermore, the historical evolution of financial reporting attests that the role of IFRS is provided by the high
quality of financial statements and the level of transparency concerning the financial reporting has decreased in
time. The findings show that mastering accounting information has to be consolidated on a solid financial
reporting according to IFRS or the national rules in force. Due to the economic problems associated with the
flow of financial information, regulators and regulators have a direct interest in financial reporting. Ultimately,
by presenting economic substance rather than legal substance, IFRS standards involve the timely recognition of
losses, diminishing managerial discretion and smoothing revenue management.
Academic research is a useful resource that supports standard regulators in understanding the possible
effects of accounting standards. Accounting research identifies problems by providing evidence to accounting
settlers that can help informally support current research.
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Marta Tache, et. al, “A Historical Approach to the Financial Reporting Under IFRS.”
International Journal of Business and Management Invention (IJBMI), vol. 10(03), 2021, pp. 19-
26. Journal DOI- 10.35629/8028