ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS AND ITS EFFECTS ON COMPARABILITY AND CONSISTENCY OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The research goal of this paper was to identify whether continuous changes in the International Financial Reporting Standards affect the comparability and consistency of the financial statements in the short and long term. Paper identifies factors that cause such changes in accounting standards to point out reasons why such changes do appear. In order to achieve scientifically based conclusions, the changes in 15 International Accounting Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards recorded in the period from 1975 to 2018 were analyzed in chronological order. In the research process, the available literature with the content of standards valid at a certain point in time was analyzed. Different standards’ editions have been analyzed using appropriate scientific methods; analysis, synthesis, comparative method, induction and deduction methods, and other relevant scientific methods. Research showed that changes in accounting standards may have an impact on the quality of financial reporting in certain cases because changes distort the application of fundamental accounting principles – comparability and consistency. The scientific contribution of this paper is the identification and systematization of key changes in IFRSs and conclusions on its impact on the quality of financial reporting of all companies applying IFRSs.