Tacis FINRUS 9802 Accounting Reform
The project aims at assisting the Russian Inter Agency Committee on Accounting Reform to carry out Russian accounting reform and to develop national accounting standards in accordance with International Accounting Standards.
The project commenced originally in September 1999 and involves providing technical assistance to the Inter Agency Commission on Accounting Reform, which is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kudrin. It has been extended until July 2002.
The original terms of reference of the project involved primarily assistance in the drafting of ten new accounting standards with the topics selected by the Ministry of Finance, with an additional element regarding requirements of SMEs. Whilst the proposals and recommendations of the project in the form of discussion papers and commentaries have been delivered already and have also been presented in a series of conferences, the Ministry of Finance requires more time to consider the proposals and decide what action is to be taken. A closing conference was held on 29-30 November with the participation of Mr Wright (Head of Delegation of European Commission), Mr Sharonov (Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade) and Mr Bakaev (Ministry of Finance) and Mr Van der Plaats (European Commission Directorate General – Internal Market) during which members from the Ministries of Finance and MEDT were presented with a final version of these materials.
In the last months, the scope of the project has been extended primarily in the area of management accounting. The project will assist the Inter Agency Commission in defining a strategy for the encouragement of good management accounting practice and in establishing whether Russian industry is ready to support this development through the creation of a Russian Institute of Management Accounting. A major conference was organised on 18 December in cooperation with Deputy Minister Mr Sharonov (MEDT) to discuss the issues of upgrading management accounting systems in Russian enterprises.
Finally a key achievement of the project has been the creation of an informal group of specialists from large Russian companies who can debate proposals with government officials and the project team in an informal environment. The group has grown from around 20 at the beginning of 2001 to about 120 at its latest meeting on 29-30 November.
Tacis FINRUS 9901 Reform of Auditing
The project aims at contributing to a significantly increased credibility of audited financial statements of Russian entities subject to compulsory audit by private sector licensed auditors and auditing companies.
The project web site is up and running in both Russian and English versions. Among the material available are a manual on auditing and a series of forms and instructions on how they are used. This, for the first time in Russia, makes available to the smaller audit firms, the systems and techniques similar to those used by the «Big Five» international audit firms.
Tacis FINRUS 9804 Support to Accounting Reform in the Banking Sector
The project is assisting the CBRF with implementation plans and procedures for reporting by banks in accordance with international accounting standards. Sixteen priority accounting regulations have been drafted by the project and are in the process of being agreed with the project beneficiary, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, («CBRF»), and being tested at the project’s six pilot banks. The project, originally scheduled to finish at the end of November, has been extended to mid-February.
The scheduled training and technical assistance programmes have been completed. The core IAS training courses have been delivered to in excess of 500 participants from banks and training institutions. A total of 29 training events have been held in Moscow and in eight other regional banking centers in Russia. In addition, approximately 60 workshops and seminars have been held at individual pilot banks or jointly for participants from all pilot banks. These covered the core technical assistance subjects of accounting standards and procedures, internal audit, management information systems and broad automation plans. Further training events and workshops are now planned.
Major generic outputs from the training and technical assistance programmes are available on the project web site: http://www.tacis-bankreform.ru. These include: Internal Audit Manual (Volume One) and its companion Field Guide (Volume Two); An Approach to Financial Management – a comprehensive report that gives banks practical guidance on how to design and implement a management information system; Catalogue of Management Reports – compiled to assist in the collection and presentation of accounting and other data for reports to bank management; A Methodological Guide to I.T. Solutions – a guidance paper for banks to assist them to select the correct I.T. solutions, Training Material from IAS courses and workshops. The methodology adopted in the pilot banks to enable them to produce IAS accounts has been the reclassification and adjustment of accounting data used for reporting in accordance with Russian accounting regulations and requirements. The methodology has been incorporated and described in an IAS Conversion Manual, currently in draft form for review by the CBRF.