Financial reporting

The Accounting Market Study has been designed to provide relevant information for multiple uses, including the gathering of statistics for IFAC. It also offers quantitative information and feedback on aspects of the functioning of the accounting market to enable better understanding of the market for regulatory purposes.

This special edition of “Connecting Voices” was published to coincide with the World Bank Centre for Financial Reporting Reform’s (CFRR) Ministerial Conference in Vienna on 27 April 2016. The theme of the magazine, Financial Information: Catalyst for Growth, is reflected in its articles and interviews, which focus on the importance of timely, reliable, and transparent financial information as a driver and contributor of sustainable economic growth.

This study is available in English and Polish. It assesses the current regulations and practices related to accounting vouchers and bookkeeping in Poland, including cross-cutting tax regulations, and compares them with selected EU countries (France, Germany and UK). The study was undertaken at the request of the Polish Ministry of Finance, and funded under the Financial Reporting Technical Assistance Program (FRTAP) by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the Enlarged European Union.

An introduction into Austria’s corporate financial reporting environment, with a particular focus on SMEs and specific features of the Austrian environment, intended for policy makers, regulators and practitioners looking for examples of how to formulate or implement the corporate financial reporting elements of the EU acquis communautaire.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a particularly important role in the Austrian economy, with commercial banks acting as their main sources of external finance. As SMEs are also very important in the REPARIS countries, analyzing how SMEs and their banks view the operation of financial reporting in Austria could produce some useful pointers for the design of financial reporting frameworks in the REPARIS countries.

The report describes the South-South Corporate Financial Reporting Exchange Program for Moldova, as a result of which the Moldovan side obtained a better understanding of challenges and defined some policies to achieve the aim of setting up and operating a modern system of financial reporting which is aligned with EU requirements.

The CFRR produces regular reports for its main programs to inform donors, participants and other stakeholders of how the programs are developing. These progress reports summarize the activities carried out under the program and outline how the experience gained will be used to improve the design of the next stages of the program.

As part of the Joint Economic Research Program (JERP), the CFRR has published a report summarizing the options for continuing the reform of financial reporting for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Kazakhstan.