Accounting for Small Businesses: The Role of IFRS

Nancy Christie, CPA, and John Brozovsky, CPA, and Sam Hicks, CPA

For decades, U.S accountants in all fields have recognized a need for a simpler set of financial reporting standards for small businesses, but regulators have not been willing to provide a second set of standards. Now, for the first time, there may be an answer for small firms desiring relief from the onerous reporting requirements of GAAP. The AICPA now recognizes the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) recently released International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs), as an official set of accounting standards to be audited against. Now that separate accounting principles designed specifically for small businesses exist, how will it be received by CPAs? Will small businesses and their accountants change their methods?