Using different set of books at the same time – HGB and IFRS in SAP Business ByDesign:

02.01.2019

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are international accounting standards for companies. They were issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and have the objective of enabling the publication of internationally comparable annual and consolidated financial statements independently of national legal regulations.

In SAP Business ByDesign, you can maintain locally and internationally operating set of books. In addition to the German Commercial Code (HGB) and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) etc., you can also add International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Experiences with different set of books at the same time:

Different set of books can be used simultaneously. You need a separate accounting principle for each set of book.  In the past, we worked with customers who had to provide their annual financial statements according to both HGB and IFRS. The main difference to the accounting regulations of the HGB is that instead of the valuation at acquisition cost, a valuation at market value is requested. This places information for owners or shareholders in focus. It was also important for our customers to correctly consider the differences in rent, lease and other liabilities, as these are accounted for in IFRS as depreciation rather than expenses.

To work with two set of books at the same time and do postings in parallel, you create two set of books and assign your local accounting principle to one and the IFRS accounting principle to the other. You must also assign the chart of accounts valid according to the accounting principles to the set of book. This means that you use different charts of accounts. As a result, for automatic postings, a business transaction based on account determination is automatically posted to all set of books and separate posting documents are created. For manual postings, you can specify whether the posting is only valid for a single set of book.

NEW Revenue recognition according to IFRS 15/ASC 606:

Revenue recognition in compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS 15) is now also possible in SAP Business ByDesign. This enables you to use revenues from contracts with customers for revenue recognition. This requirement has been issued jointly by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

IFRS15/ASC606 describes a five-step model that guides accountants through the revenue recognition process. These five steps are:

1. Identifying the contract with the customer
2. Identifying the Performance Obligations
3. Determining the Transaction Price
4. Allocating the Transaction Price to the Performance Obligation
5. Realizing Revenue

Add set of book for IFRS afterwards:

You have been working with SAP Business ByDesign for some time and now decide to report according to IFRS or you are obliged to prepare your financial statements according to IFRS?  Please feel free to contact us. In the past, we have also found a solution for this.