A critical analysis of the contents of the IFRS for SMEs - a South African perspective

Abstract

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) was developed to address the reporting needs of SMEs worldwide. Furthermore, SMEs from different parts of the world are exposed to different conditions and environments.

Although the IFRS for SMEs was not intended for a specific user group,the majority of the respondents to the Exposure Draft on IFRS for SMEs were from Europe and other developed countries while only limited respondents from Africa and developing countries were involved. 

This study considered the relevance of the contents of the IFRS for SMEs in the South African environment based on user requirements. Since SMEs do not necessarily have functional accounting departments and because they rely on external accountants to compile financial statements, we included accounting practitioners and trainee accountants from the SME sector in our survey. As a result we classified the contents of the IFRS for SMEs, from a South African perspective, into different levels of importance or relevance.