KPMG, the Kingdom’s leading accounting and consulting firm, recently held its second seminar on the International Financial Reporting Standards for Small and Medium-sized entities (the IFRS for SMEs) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Riyadh, seeking to ease the transition many companies are making to the newly required accounting standards. “Entities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who do not have public accountability have an important choice to make come Jan. 1, 2018, i.e., either to adopt full IFRS or the IFRS for SMEs. The IFRS for SMEs is a simplified and slimmed-down version of the full IFRS. It removes the more complex option in certain areas, has less extensive disclosure requirements and considers the balance between the cost and benefit to preparers,” said Mohammed Tareq, Head of Audit, KPMG in Saudi Arabia. As part of its ongoing efforts to support the private sector, KPMG experts employed their extensive international experience and insight in IFRS for SMEs explaining the accounting rules pertaining to key topics such as property, plant and equipment, intangible assets other than goodwill, leases, investment property, revenues, financial instruments and employee benefits. The experts were able to make extremely important comparisons between IFRS for SMEs and the generally accepted accounting standards issued by the Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). There are a variety of questions and matters to take into consideration when contemplating the adoption of the IFRS for SMEs. These include the definition of public accountability, advantages of adopting the IFRS for SMEs and differences between SOCPA and the IFRS for SMEs. The primary purpose of the seminar was to help provide detailed insights into that process. As the deadline for implementing the IFRS approaches, KPMG, by organizing such seminars aims at making accounting more transparent, strengthening its leading position as a principle provider of accounting and advisory services through international expertise and a dedicated local professional team with solid insight into the Saudi market. — SG