How to present any changes in accounting policy in the financial statements in Poland?

Financial reports contain much valuable information about the business entity. It is essential that such reports be prepared in a reliable way because they are a source of knowledge about the results achieved by the company, which is crucial for both investors and employees alike. For the report to be valuable, it must be created in a similar way to the data from the previous financial year. Sometimes, however, circumstances may occur that disrupt this comparability. 

What events require changes to the financial statements?

The usefulness of financial statements is based on the possibility of compiling data from a specific period in the past. Usually, information on subsequent financial years is comparable, but certain events may disrupt this consistency. One should always pay attention to any general change in accounting policy or any correction of errors from previous years. It should be noted though that the following do not affect comparability of data:

• inclusion of events after the balance sheet date,
• change of the legal form of the entity,
• change in estimated values,
• merger of companies by acquisition or establishment of a new company.

What is the proper way to present data in financial statements?

The principles of data presentation that ensure the comparability of financial statements are described in the National Accounting Standard No. 7, which was amended during the meeting of the Accounting Standards Committee on December 15, 2015. According to that Standard if the comparability of numbers or texts has been disturbed, it must be supplemented with retrospectively transformed data in a separate column of the balance sheet. If possible, this should be repeated in the profit and loss account and cash flow statement. The headers of specific columns will differ depending on how a particular company presents the data.

The reports help in overseeing the financial results of the company and enable the compilation of such results over many years. It is, therefore, worth ensuring that the information contained in these documents is consistent and comparable.