Countdown to IFRS for AIM companies

Lessons to be learned from the experience of full listed companies:

All UK listed companies have been required to prepare their consolidated accounts under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2005. As a result, listed companies with year-ends of 31 December 2005 have now issued their first Annual Reports under IFRS. The experience of these full listed companies will be helpful for AIM companies having to prepare IFRS accounts from 1 January 2007.

We set out below a number of key issues which AIM companies should consider now in the transition to IFRS in 2007:

• ensure that you are well prepared, have a project plan and timetable for IFRS conversion and adequate resources, both internal and external
• make sure you consider the treatment and valuation of any acquired intangibles, as under IFRS what was previously categorised as goodwill can be reclassified as other intangibles, which are then subject to annual amortisation
• where fair values are required, make sure that you have made plans to obtain the necessary valuations, e.g. financial instruments under IAS 39, share options under IFRS 2 and pensions (IAS 19)communicate with your auditors throughout the process - they will need to sign off on the IFRS financial statements
• don't forget about embedded derivatives - these have caused a lot of concern
• give thought to the format of the financial statements. A lot of companies are presenting a "normalised" or "adjusted" profit in addition to the reported IFRS profit, to strip out the volatility of certain fair value adjustments, e.g. share options
• consider whether you want to comply with the strict documentation requirements of IAS 39 in order to adopt hedge accounting.

Planning ahead means that you will be able to manage your accounting resources more efficiently and minimise the impact on your day-to-day operations.