Convergence of Accounting Standards to International Financial Reporting Standards

Purpose: Convergence of accounting standards to IFRS has become an important issue in the present era of globalization as every country has their own set of financial statements. So there is a need for common accounting standards for increasing cross-border investments and borrowings. The main purpose of the study was to understand the convergence of accounting standards, advantages of convergence to accounting standards, challenges in adopting IFRS and the responsibility of training of accountants. The study tries to understand the perception of qualified accountants towards the convergence and their inherent benefits, obstacles, responsibility for training of accountants and developing a common understanding about the convergence. The study used the survey method to approach the respondents through a pre-tested and well structured questionnaire. It consisted of structured closed ended questions. 150 questionnaires were distributed among the various qualified accountants in the five major cities of Rajasthan (Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Kota and Ajmer) and only 130 responses were complete in all respects and hence were considered for the study. F-test was used to find out the significance of association between the demographics and the variables selected for the study. Accounting practitioners feel that convergence would be beneficial for India, it will create financial information more comparable and reliable but cultural differences will make difficulties in convergence across the years of experience in job. In case of responsibility of training of accountants practitioners feel that they must train themselves for IFRS and even audit firms must arrange training for their employees and partners. Convergence of IFRS would help the businesses and services in increasing their cross- border investments and borrowings. It would also help in raising the foreign capital as all the concerned shareholders will be able to understand the financial statements of foreign companies and this would finally help in improving the quality and consistency with the local economic, social and legal conditions