BDO has released illustrative interim IFRS financial statements for the half-year ended 30 June 2024.
The publication is a great resource for anyone who must prepare or review interim financial statements as they reflect amendments to IFRS Accounting Standards and agenda decisions from the IFRS Interpretations Committee.
IFRS® Accounting Standards do not require the preparation of interim financial statements. Paragraph 36 in IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements only requires that: ‘An entity shall present a complete set of financial statements (including comparative information) at least annually’.
IAS 34 Interim Financial Reporting also does not mandate which entities are required to publish interim financial statements, how frequently they should be produced, or how soon interim reports should be released after each reporting date. However, the standard encourages publicly traded entities to provide interim financial reports at least as of the end of the first half of their financial year, no later than 60 days after the interim reporting date.
Securities regulators, stock exchanges, and other stakeholders often require entities to publish interim financial statements. An entity is required to apply IAS 34 if it elects to (or must) prepare interim financial statements in accordance with IFRS Accounting Standards as a result of local legislation. An entity that presents interim financial statements can choose to prepare them either in the format of a complete set of financial statements or in the format of a set of condensed financial statements. For the purposes of the presentation of interim financial statements, all paragraphs in IAS 1 apply to a complete set of financial statements whereas only IAS 1.15 – 35 are applicable for condensed financial statements (IAS 1.4) which cover the following general features:
- Fair presentation and compliance with IFRS Accounting Standards
- Going concern
- Accrual basis of accounting
- Materiality and aggregation
- Offsetting.
Preparers of condensed interim financial statements are required to present the same primary statements as in their annual statements. However, IAS 34 does not require presentation of the same detailed amount of information and also requires fewer disclosures to be made. The current and comparative periods to be presented also differ from annual statements.