We carry out regular FRS 102 compliance reviews for client accounting firms. Here is a selection of some of the most common findings.
Balance sheet
- ‘Equity’ is often labelled as ‘Called-up share capital’ when it should be correctly labelled as ‘Called-up share capital presented as equity’ and Note 18 to the financial statements must correspond accordingly.
- One cannot use the terms ‘Non-Current Assets’, Trade Receivables’ or ‘Trade Payables’ under the Companies Act, 2014 (CA 2014).
Accounting Policies
The financial statements are required under section 3.24 FRS 102 to (a) disclose the legal form of the entity, its country of incorporation and the address of its registered office (or principal place of business, if different from the registered office); and (b) a description of the nature of the entity’s operations and its principal activities, unless this is disclosed in the business review (or similar statement) accompanying the financial statements.
If the above information is shown elsewhere, then one may cross-reference it to that location in the financial statements.
Turnover
In the accounting policy note for ‘turnover’ the words ‘fair value’ need to be included and worded to indicate that the accruals concept was used (‘received and receivable’) in order to comply with Section 23 of FRS 102 e.g. something like: ‘Turnover comprises of the fair value of sales income of the company received and receivable during the year, excluding Value Added Tax’.
The accounting policy for ‘Property, Plant & Equipment’ often needs re-worded to use the words ‘Tangible Fixed Assets’ under the CA 2014.
Provision for doubtful debts
Some financial statements make no mention of a policy on bad debts. The language needs to be compatible with FRS 102. See the text in paragraphs 11.22 to 11.24 in the standard and ensure to use language like ‘objective evidence’ rather than saying the estimate is based on ‘historical experience’ which might not necessarily be objective.
Stock – no such thing any more as ‘net realisable value’. The new terminology is ‘stock is stated at the lower of cost and estimated selling price less costs to complete and sell’.
To hear more about these types of issues and get up to date with FSR 102 come to our forthcoming FRS 102 courses in Dublin.
For more details and booking visit https://jmcc.ie/d7/content/cpd-courses
