Notes to the financial statements

The notes must:

• Present information about the basis of preparation of the financial statements and the specific accounting policies used
• Disclose any information required by IFRSs that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements and
• Provide additional information that is not presented elsewhere in the financial statements but is relevant to an understanding of any of them

Notes should be cross-referenced from the face of the financial statements to the relevant note.

IAS 1 suggest that the notes should normally be presented in the following order:

• A statement of compliance with IFRSs
• A summary of significant accounting policies applied, including:
• The measurement basis (or bases) used in preparing the financial statements
• The other accounting policies used that are relevant to an understanding of the financial statements
• Supporting information for items presented on the face of the statement of financial position (balance sheet), statement of comprehensive income (and income statement, if presented), statement of changes in equity and statement of cash flows, in the order in which each statement and each line item is presented
• Other disclosures, including:
• Contingent liabilities and undersigned contractual commitments
• Non-financial disclosures, such as the entity's financial risk management objectives and policies

Disclosure of judgments

An entity must disclose, in the summary of significant accounting policies or other notes, the judgments, apart from these involving estimations, that management has made in the process of applying the entity's accounting policies that have the most significant effect on the amounts recognized in the financial statements.

Examples cited in IAS 1 include management's judgments in determining:

• Whether financial assets are held-to-maturity investments
• When substantially all the significant risks and rewards of ownership of financial assets and lease assets are transferred to other entities
• Whether, in substance, particular sales of goods are financing arrangements and therefore do not give rise to revenue; and
• Whether the substance of the relationship between the entity and a special purpose entity indicates control

Disclosure of key resources of estimation uncertainty

An entity must disclose, in the notes, information about the key assumptions concerning the future, and other key sources of estimation uncertainty at the end of the reporting period, that have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next financial year. These disclosures do not involve disclosing budgets or forecasts.

The following other note disclosures are required by IAS 1 if not disclosed elsewhere in information published with the financial statements:

• Domicile and legal form of the entity
• Country of incorporation
• Address of registered office or principal place of business
• Description of the entity's operations and principal activities
• If it is part of a group, the name of its parent and the ultimate parent of the group
• If it is a limited life entity, information regarding the length of the life