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CaseWare launches IFRS accounts production module

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21st Oct 2008
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Canadian audit and accounts production software house CaseWare has introduced a new module for handling international financial reporting standards (IFRS). John Stokdyk reports

Usually CaseWare leaves development of local templates to its network of international distributors, but due to the complexity and importance of the IFRS project, head office took charge of development, with partners in different territories adding layers to cater for their local accepted treatments and requirements. In the UK, for example, CaseWare's subsidiary needed to cater for the specific demands of the Companies Act.

According to Caseware UK managing director Simon Warren, the depth of content and the wide variety of presentations and note structures take within IFRS take international GAAP beyond the reach of conventional accounts production software.

"UK GAAP can be wizard-driven. IFRS is far more opinionated," he said. "The presentations and disclosures for segmental structures and additional information can be so different that the concept of automation doesn't hold. You can't press a button to produce IFRS. There are so many variables and such a huge range of industries - there's no comparability between Marks & Spencer's accounts and those of a hedge fund."

The CaseWare IFRS module includes a content management engine and an editing toolkit to let define entity structures and consolidation workflows. The program also has a transaction import system, built around a mapping structure that links GL to smart worksheets. The editing tools make it easier to create complex schedules or to deal with segmental analysis called for within international GAAP. In addition to the editing controls and stylesheets, CaseWare can take care of version control and distribution of the finished accounts.

Those are a lot of big words for an accounts production system, but the challenge of IFRS has brought out the strengths of the underlying technology, said Warren. "CaseWare is a development platform designed to produce accounts and regulatory returns. The core concept is solid - there are no principles other than it's based on double entry and must balance. It will produce reports and it knows what a note to the accounts is."

In his words, CaseWare is "almost a build-anything tool kit" that's even easier to develop accounts with than a spreadsheet.

The IFRS implementation is opening up a new market for the software in the corporate world, added sales director Shez Hamill. "We've been getting lots more corporate calls from companies who shifted to IFRS for the first time last year and had a nightmare. This time around, they're looking for something to take away the pain."

But IFRS is becoming a reality for practitioners too, he explained. "A year ago, the firms we would go to see had no IFRS clients, now they'll have one or two. We're definitely on the upward ramp."

The collapse of Andersen in 2002 sent a tranche of corporate clients looking into the next tier down. Mid-size firms had to start looking at international standards, because they had clients looking at them too, Hamill said.

"Mid-size firms that are moving into IFRS have clients they didn't anticipate using IFRS before. They're trying to hang on to those - they represent their future as an accounting firm. There's a real opportunity there," he added.

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