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Development of Financial Reporting in the 21st Century

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Development of Financial Reporting in the 21st Century Globalisation of Financial Reporting (IFRS and IAS)

In the 15 years since the start of the 21st century there has been many dramatic changes in the financial world. These dramatic changes included the collapse of some of the world's largest corporations , many of whom were making fraudulent financial reports at the time of their demise (such as Enron Corporation and WorldCom) , the downfall of one of the worlds “Big Five” accounting firms ; Arthur Anderson (which was directly related to the Enron scandal) and an economic collapse that resulted in many national economies suffering hugely.

However despite these dramatic changes, nothing has been more significant than the rapid acceptance of International Financial Reporting Standards (IRFS) across the globe.
This means that companies from all over the world are beginning to adhere to a single set of global accounting standards.
This wide acceptance of IFRS has stemmed from globalisation.
Globalisation is the process by which companies begin to trade on an international scale and spread their influence globally (e.g NIKE & McDonalds) , often having numerous headquarters across the world.

What is IFRS?
International Financial Reporting Standards are designed to be used as a universal language for conducting business across the world, their goal is for company accounts to be coherent across all international borders.

The concept of IFRS was inspired by how the EU implemented a system where as all member countries began to conduct business using the same accounting methods and financial reporting (1). This method then became of interest to other nations.
What enabled IFRS to come into existence was the vocal need for unification of business systems and financial reporting methods.
Before IFRS came into being each

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