KPMG Saudi Arabia, a provider of independent auditing services that helps enhance the reliability and credibility of financial reporting, recently concluded its seminars in Al-Khobar. The seminars were aimed at helping companies achieve seamless convergence to the International Financing Reporting Standards (IFRS). KPMG Saudi Arabia is currently preparing for the Riyadh seminars set to take place May 22-23. The timing of the Riyadh seminars is perfect given that accounting and auditing firms operating in the country are currently seeking to ensure that all businesses in the Saudi market are prepared for the transition to IFRS. The joint-stock companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) will adopt IFRS by the beginning of 2017 while other companies will follow suit by 2018. In his opening address, Ebrahim Oboud Baeshen, managing partner, KPMG Jeddah and Al-Khobar, emphasized the importance of the role played by finance teams at companies. He highlighted the collective responsibility of the regulators, financial statement preparers, auditors, users and academics and urged them all to join forces and work together to achieve the goals of the seminars. The seminars explained the convergence to IFRS and discussed the proposed mechanism and potential challenges. Companies were advised to finalize internal procedures and initiate IFRS convergence. Proper ways to educate financial statement stakeholders about the potential impact of IFRS on financial statements were also listed. The analysis of international standards was discussed elaborately especially those that are expected to have higher impact on financial statements on adoption of IFRS. The differences between the current effective standards and IFRS were highlighted with an accentuation on being fully prepared to handle such differences and maintaining strict compliance. Moreover, the new Companies Law with its amendments and regulations pertaining to financial statement preparation also reviewed. The seminars concluded with an interactive session, which witnessed active participation from attendees who were briefed on IFRS global practices. Overall, the seminars emphasized the importance of the technical and professional prerequisites for achieving full IFRS convergence. It is important to start recording and measuring business operations based on IFRS. Such operations should be analyzed in order to identify any missing information or error caused by lack of understanding for IFRS. The seminars called upon employees to get prepared professionally in order to meet the onerous disclosure requirements of IFRS compared with current practice. Khalil Al-Sedais, managing partner, Riyadh and head of Audit Services, Saudi Arabia said: "The Vision 2030 focuses on developing human resources across all sectors and raising them to adopt best global practices while broadening the scope of local and global investments in order to ensure continuous development of the local economy. This means that accountants and auditors must now enhance confidence in and transparency of financial information about company performance in private and public sectors." He added: "The degree of IFRS enforcement is expected to vary in the beginning of the convergence process based on the nature of the sector. Some companies already apply global IFRS because they have offshore business activities or can act as a reference for applying local standards. At KPMG we set our eyes on technical and professional preparation and seek to help our clients eliminate any difference in the level of IFRS enforcement, while ensuring successful implementation". The seminars also highlighted the aspects related to local and regulatory environments such as the new Companies Law, establishment of companies, shareholders and governance. For the latter, the law has designated new tools to ensure efficiency of governance levels within companies together with losses and debts. Asim Al-Tuwaijri, manager of company services, KPMG Saudi Arabia, explained: "The new Companies Law will bring benefits to the market as it enhances companies' disclosure and transparency standards. It has tools for expediting company operations and its internal bylaws, such as assemblies of partners, or speeding up procedures with concerned authorities such as the Ministry of Commerce and Investment." He added: "The new law has introduced major changes to the way companies operate. However, the burden of complying with the new law is on companies. Therefore, they must act now to remedy this situation and not rely on the long waiting period as some amendments might take longer than expected."
