Canada to switch to IFRS by 2011

According to Reuters, public Canadian companies are slow to adapt the new IFRS accounting system. With over 100 companies adopting IFRS, the slow implementation of IFRS could leave some companies rushing to convert to the system before official deadline switch of January 1, 2011.

Yet the study, conducted by CFERF, FEI Canada, and sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that 12 percent of the 147 public companies surveyed had not yet taken the first step of starting their initial diagnostic assessments.

About 80 percent of public companies remained short of the halfway mark in their overall conversion process.

Read the full story here.

Will principle based accounting improve financial reporting?

In a recent article at The Vancouver Sun, they look at Canada's current switch of public companies to the IFRS accounting system. They believe that the standards are important, but one must also consider the quality of the accounting and financial statements that are in use. They did a study and found out that a principle based approach to accounting can improve the reporting, but the auditors must also have a principle based approach to auditing as well. Read the full article to see how they found that accounting was affected by the different approaches.