AAT Student
Financial statements factsheet
International Accounting Standards
The purpose of this document is to provide useful guidance to aid students in their understanding of the content of those accounting standards assessable in the
Financial Statements module.
IAS 1: Presentation of Financial Statements
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This standard prescribes the basis for the presentation of general purpose financial statements, to ensure comparability both with the entity’s financial statements of previous periods and with financial statements of other entities.
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It sets out overall requirements for the presentation of financial statements, guidelines for their structure and minimum requirements for their content.
Objective of financial statements
The objective of general purpose financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, financial performance and cash flows of an entity that is useful to a wide range of users in making economic decisions. To meet that objective, financial statements provide information about an entity's: •
assets
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liabilities
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equity
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income and expenses, including gains and losses
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contributions by and distributions to owners
• cash flows.
That information, along with other information in the notes, assists users of financial statements in predicting the entity's future cash flows and, in particular, their timing and certainty.
A complete set of financial statements for a limited company consists of:
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a statement of comprehensive income for the period
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a statement of financial position as at the end of the period
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a statement of changes in equity for the period
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a statement of cash flows for the period
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notes, comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information. In addition, financial statements must clearly identify:
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the reporting enterprise
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whether the statements