IFRS: Not a Disaster but an Embarrassment Going from adopting to harmonizing Australian accounting standards with International Financial Reporting Standards, Australian companies have suffered embarrassment and perplexity in the process of understanding and implementation of new standards Problems arise in understanding the overly complicated relationships between IFRS, A-IFRS (Australian equivalents to IFRS) and the original AASB standards. The distinction between them is not very significant, but they have some fundamental differences that are essential for specific transactions and accounting operations. There are not too many problems in recognizing the differences between IFRS and AASB. The answer can be found in the textbook, "the only material difference between the AASB and the corresponding IFRS is the elimination of one or more alternatives permitted in the IFRS, or the expansion of a standard to deal with matters not covered or excluded by IFRS." The inconsistency between IFRS and A-IFRS is even as complex as saying "the devil is in the details". The details of a demonstration can be seen in the contrast lists on pages 3-5, which were found and copied on the Internet. The adoption of IFRS impacts many areas of financial reporting. The immediate and ongoing implications are not uniform across companies, but depend on factors such as the nature of business activities, balance sheets and capital structures. For some companies, the implications will be less significant and will primarily represent a change in the presentation of their financial statements. For others, however, the implications will be more substantial. They may result in changes to the amount and composition of reported financial performance and financial position, the scope of future capital management, the ability of reporting systems to capture the required information, and changes to operational and risk management practices. The main issues arising from the adoption of IFRS and their prudential implications are explained below.