Accounting standard
Accounting standards prescribe in considerable detail what accruals must be made, how the financial statements are to be presented, and what additional disclosures are required.Giant firms in some Asian countries were able to take advantage of their poorly devised accounting standards to cover up immense debts and losses, which yielded a collective effect that eventually led the whole region into financial crisis.[citation needed] The notable limitations of accounting standards are their inflexibility, time-consuming process to create them, the difficulty of choosing between alternative treatments and their restrictive scope.All listed and grouped EU companies have been required to use IFRS since 2005, Canada moved in 2009,[5] Taiwan in 2013,[6] and other countries are adopting local versions.[7][8] In the United States, while "... the SEC published a statement of continued support for a single set of high-quality, globally accepted accounting standards, and acknowledged that IFRS is best positioned to serve this role..."[9] progress is less evident.