Financial statement

The end of the year is approaching fast, and for most businesses it means they need to close their accounts and prepare their financial statements. Unfortunately, this year there may be some trouble around the corner: due to exceeding predefined thresholds, many organisations will be burdened with additional obligations arising from the requirement to have their financial statements audited by a statutory auditor.

Leasing is a unique form of business financing, where companies do not need to purchase the assets in order to use them. With the growing popularity of lease, many entrepreneurs are considering the pros and cons of this type of financing, also in the context of tax costs. What is very important yet often overlooked here is that your lease must be recognised on your balance sheet properly. What do you need to focus on?

Not long ago, we had a look at the valuation of fixed assets for impairment, i.e. we briefly discussed the impairment test. The choice of this topic was due to the economic downturn in certain industries. Today, we are going to discuss another area of financial reporting, very popular in recent years, namely cryptocurrencies. How do you recognise and value these virtual assets in your financial statements?

Conducting an assets inventory check is an obligation arising from the Accounting Act (let us remind you that on September 23, 2015, a new Act dated July 23, 2015 on amendments to the Accounting Act and other Acts entered into force [Journal of Laws 2015, item 1333]).

An error in a financial statement may happen to any business unit. Often, errors will be revealed after the statement has been signed or even approved. According to the National Accounting Standard No. 7, all business entities are obliged to correct any error that has been revealed, regardless whether such errors pertain to the current trading year, or previous years.

Introduction of International Auditing Standards (hereinafter: ISAs) in Poland offers a huge opportunity of improving the quality of audit services, and thereby the quality of financial statements themselves for the benefit of all interested parties (management boards, shareholders, prospective investors and statutory auditors).

We have already covered the issue of cooperation with an auditor but, while scanning publicly available financial statements, especially of the companies listed on New Connect, I came to the conclusion that there is still too little talk about certain issues. I suggest looking at a few randomly selected financial statements presented on the issuers’ websites. My point is not to assess the economic activity of the companies, but to see how information on achievements of a company in a given year is included in its annual financial statements, which, to my mind, should constitute the information provided by the board to the supreme authority of the company, namely its owners (indeed, it is shareholders that are most important in the company, because the ownership belongs to them). I browse through financial statements of the companies listed on New Connect quite often and two things strike me, as an outside reader, most: first, not including all data required by the Accounting Act and second, overall slovenliness of the presented financial statements, which aspects show the attitude of the companies’ managements to this official document.

More than once did I wonder what is the actual meaning of auditing services in Poland. And I came to the conclusion that this meaning is still “greatly underestimated”. An audit of a financial statement is so much more than just a verification for correctness. I believe a financial audit is, most of all, an opportunity to identify the organisation's “weak points”, allowing management to minimise existing though not always realised risks.