PRESENTING FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE – CHANGE ON THE
HORIZON?
Regulators and standard-setters are thinking hard about
alternative performance measures and further guidance via standard
setting or regulation may not be comfortable for the preparer
community. Peter Hogarth, a partner in PwC's Accounting
Consulting Services, looks at recent developments.
The presentation of financial performance can be a battlefield
where preparers of financial statements charge in to meet the
regulators and standard-setters. Preparers, understandably, want to
tell their story with a natural tendency to highlight the positive
and pass quickly over any failures.
Regulators worry that the reader might be misled. Some
regulators have responded by taking a hard line and imposing a
standard format for the income statement with no additional
sub-totals or analysis - a sort of uniform score card.
