The regulatory environment and financial reporting

You are employed in a large accounting firm which specialises in preparing general purpose financial reports for large companies that are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). As the accounting graduate, you have been tasked with the development of a short (1-page) newsletter for staff involved in the preparation of the above financial reports. The purpose of the newsletter is to keep staff up to date on some key changes and developments relating to the following key areas:

• Accounting for leases;
• Proposed amendments to Australian Accounting Standards relating to the Disclosure of Accounting Policies and the definition of Accounting Estimates; and
• Sustainability reporting and the potential development of IFRS Sustainability Standards.

Required:

Prepare a 1-page newsletter that analyses and summarises recent changes and developments in the financial reporting environment in the above key areas . Your newsletter must contain the following information:

• A well researched summary of the nature of the news / change / development and brief context as to the reasons for these changes;

• Analysis of these changes with the aim of providing some commentary for your colleagues on the potential impact of the changes to financial reporting itself as well as the way they will need to work under these new changes; and

• Your sources should be referenced, so staff can decide whether they need to investigate further given the nature of their own work.

Guidelines for completing this task: Your newsletter will require you to undertake research across a range of sources. You will need to consider both local (Australian) and international sources and developments which are relevant to your targeted audience.

The restriction of a 1-page newsletter means that you need to use your own judgment as to whether to include information about specific news items and changes / developments, and how much information to include. It is not intended that you provide complete details of all changes / developments (although you may consider that more detail is needed in particular cases).

As your target audience is your peers, it is assumed that they have a working knowledge of common terms and abbreviations (such as AASB, IASB), so abbreviations may be used in your newsletter.

Given the scope of the potential influences on financial reporting, you will need to research a range of sources. Below is a list of sources that may be of interest. Note that this list is not exhaustive, students should search for sources outside of these. Students should not rely on any one type of source, but a range of sources from each category, i.e. do not just look at websites, also check journals, newspapers etc.