Learning from Others 

Lessons Learned – Start early. Invest appropriate time and thoughtfulness.
Despite knowing well ahead that the transition was coming, many companies admit that they underestimated the level of effort required to adopt and make the transition to these new standards.

Lessons Learned – Develop and actively manage realistic project plans. Take an enterprise-wide approach.

Clearly, key success factors in implementing IFRS include having appropriate project planning activity and incorporating business units outside of the finance function. For example, if projects were not properly planned and executed on a timely basis, companies found themselves:

• Scrambling at or after the transition date and facing the risk of being unable to make certain desirable accounting policy elections
• Using manual work-arounds and spreadsheet-based calculations that resulted in higher risk of errors and inadequate financial reporting controls
• Worrying that missing assumptions in their spreadsheet analysis might lead to inappropriate conclusions on accounting policies.
  

Lessons Learned – Remember your stakeholders and help them to understand.
The users of your financial statements need to understand how IFRS will affect the information they require. Monitor the approaches used by Canadian early adopters in their stakeholder communications, and adopt ideas that are likely to work for your company. Engage your senior executives, directors, investors, analysts, lenders, regulators, and others in understanding the implications of your move to IFRS.