The COVID-19 pandemic and government interventions to mitigate its effects have both immediate and on-going financial impacts. The nature and scale of these interventions vary widely across jurisdictions, as will their longer-term impacts.
To help governments understand the impact of general types of interventions at different points in time for decision making purposes, IFAC and ZHAW, with IPSASB as a Knowledge Partner, created this COVID-19 Intervention Assessment Tool. The Tool provides an immediate way of evaluating the financial impacts of current and planned policy initiatives, and can be used independently of where a jurisdiction is on the path to full accrual.
Before an organization can measure, track, and communicate on its value, it is important to understand value creation and enable a value creating business model.
This can be achieved through a management process of defining, creating, delivering, and sustaining value. This report examines the process of creating and maintaining value in great depth. It also serves to supplement the report The CFO and Finance Function Role in Value Creation.
This report sets out current thinking on how CFOs and their finance teams can account for and communicate value creation for internal and external stakeholders.
This thinking enables CFOs and their teams to focus on:
Professional accountants in business and the public sector have important roles to play in leading their organizations through the current crisis and the
This report highlights takeaways from the September 2019 Professional Accountants in Business (PAIB) Committee meeting, and outlines key priorities for accountants in business.
The report specifically focuses on:
Integrated value creation;
The value of data;
Action on the SDGs;
Opportunities and challenges for accountants in SMEs; and
The International Integrated Reporting Council's meeting, hosted today by IFAC, comes at a seminal moment for corporate reporting. To be accountable to their stakeholders, organizations need to provide a clear and concise picture of their ability to create sustainable value over time. At the same time, rapid change and disruption, driven by climate change and technology, are forcing businesses to reconsider their approach to value creation and reporting.
Over the past decade, the corporate reporting landscape has become a mosaic of mandatory and voluntary disclosures under various standards and frameworks. The result is complexity and reporting that fails to meet the needs of investors and other stakeholders. Convergence towards relevant, reliable, and comparable narrative information and metrics is desperately needed.
Integrated reporting meets today’s expectations for corporate accountability and transparency. IFAC’s partnership with the International Integrated Reporting Council aims to support organizations in developing reporting and thinking that properly considers long-term opportunities and risks.
To address the future of reporting, and the role accountants must play in it, IFAC has published its Point of View on enhancing corporate reporting. Also published on the Gateway is an article from IFAC CEO Kevin Dancey and IIRC Interim CEO Charles Tilley that highlights the evolving role of CFOs and finance teams in accounting for value creation. IFAC is determined to support this evolution through an integrated value creation agenda.
Accountants have a key role to play in this future and must work to drive corporate reporting that meets the demands of the present and the future. This is an enormous opportunity that the profession must seize now.
