IFRS | Telling the COVID-19 story

The Grant Thornton International IFRS team has published Telling the COVID-19 story.

Annual financial statements will always be a critical communication to investors and other stakeholders. But how effective will they be in explaining to stakeholders how the global COVID-19 pandemic has affected organizations?

While the focus over the last three years has been on explaining the introduction of new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) dealing with revenue, financial instruments and leasing, readers of the financial statements will want to know how the global pandemic changed the business.

Telling the COVID-19 story is not only about reflecting what the financial reporting standards require disclosure on. It is also about correctly applying the materiality concept to disclosure and not being fearful of regulatory and stakeholder challenge. Those charged with the governance of reporting entities, particularly those that are listed, have another opportunity to reflect on how they want to tell their story of their business activities throughout 2020 and how they are responding to the pandemic.

The publication Telling the COVID-19 story describes and illustrates how entities can better tell their COVID-19 story using four key tools that can help explain what has happened over the last twelve months.

The publication Telling the COVID-19 story follows this IFRS Adviser Alert.