IFRS Standards
Poland : Incomplete preparations

Overview

81% of Polish companies believe they are ready for transition. This number is not disturbing in the absolute sense, but compared to the European average (87%), Polish companies do show a certain tardiness. Still, concern can be mitigated in light of these additional elements: 65% of listed companies have prepared their opening IFRS balance sheet and 77% have completed a simulation of their 2004 financial statements; these rates correspond to the European average. However, 32% intend to issue their first IFRS annual report at a later date than the preceding year, compared to 8% in Europe.

50% of companies surveyed find the conversion costs to be high, which is a large proportion, especially when considering that only 30% believe the cost to be justified.









Employee training and readiness





Polish companies appear to show a significant delay compared to their counterparts across Europe in terms of training in the new standards: only 45% of employees directly involved in the conversion project have received formal training.







16% (compared to 7% in Europe) of companies believe that their finance teams have minimal or no knowledge of the new standards. In absolute terms, and relative to the rest of Europe, these numbers are fairly alarming, particularly as no company surveyed has created IFRS conversion teams of more than 6 employees. We can note, however, that Poland is the country which has externalised application of IFRS to the greatest extent (84% of companies made this choice, compared to a European average of 59%).

Financial impact


While companies appear fairly convinced of the contribution of IFRS to better understanding of accounts (57%) and comparability of financial statements (62%), they find the impact of transition to be less than anticipated (35%) and are not overly concerned by increased volatility (35%) or the modification of performance measures (35%).





Specific standards

Not surprisingly, these companies are most concerned about the area of financial instruments, where IFRS presents the most challenges, and Poland, at 37%, is in the top three countries for stating that the new standards have changed the way they manage their financial operations.