Recently, the IASB issued an International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) designed for use by small and medium-sized entities (SMEs), which are estimated to represent more than 95 per cent of all companies. The standard is a result of a five-year development process with extensive consultation of SMEs worldwide.
The IFRS for SMEs is a self-contained standard of about 230 pages tailored for the needs and capabilities of smaller businesses. Many of the principles in full IFRSs for recognising and measuring assets, liabilities, income and expenses have been simplified, topics not relevant to SMEs have been omitted, and the number of required disclosures has been significantly reduced.
To further reduce the reporting burden for SMEs, revisions to the IFRS will be limited to once every three years after an initial implementation review, when two years of financial statements using the IFRS have been published by a broad range of entities.
The IFRS for SMEs Taxonomy is currently being developed by the IASC Foundation XBRL Team. The exposure draft will be released in September, and the final version is scheduled for release by December 2009. Just as the IFRS for SMEs is based upon the full set of IFRSs, the IFRS for SMEs Taxonomy is built on the foundation of the IFRS Taxonomy 2009.
Release of translated IFRS Taxonomy 2009 labels
The IASC Foundation has released translations of the complete label linkbases for the IFRS Taxonomy 2009 in six key languages - Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish. Translations into other key languages such as German and Japanese are to be made available shortly.
In order to provide further support to international users of the IFRS Taxonomy, the following support materials and tools have also been released for viewing and use in Arabic, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish:
The IFRS Taxonomy Modules Manager
An online tool that guides users through the process of navigating and customising the IFRS modules that make up the IFRS Taxonomy.
The IFRS Taxonomy Illustrated
A simplified view of the IFRS Taxonomy in an easy-to-read, visual format that does not require knowledge of XBRL, with links to the electronic IFRSs (eIFRS). It has been specially prepared for accountants, auditors and those wanting a comprehensive overview of the structure and content of the IFRS Taxonomy, in order to promote understanding of the Taxonomy and to assist with preparing IFRS financial reports in XBRL format.
