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An Empirical Evaluation of theCosts of Harmonizing
RomanianAccounting with InternationalRegulations (EU Directives
andIAS/IFRS)
ION IONASCU, MIHAELA IONASCU, LAVINIA OLIMID &DANIELA
ARTEMISA CALU
Academia de Studii Economice, Bucuresti, Romonia
ABSTRACT After the fall of communism, Romanian accounting has
undergone severalwaves of reform. The first began with the 1991
Accounting Law and its 1993Regulations implementing a
French-inspired accounting chart and guidelines. Thesecond wave of
reform produced Regulations (in 1999 and 2001) for the
harmonizationof large entities accounting with EU accounting
directives and InternationalAccounting Standards/International
Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS). Aninteresting feature was
the inclusion of IASBs conceptual framework into the text ofthese
Regulations. Our study seeks to identify and evaluate the costs of
harmonizingRomanian accounting with international regulations (EU
Directives and IAS/IFRS). Wehypothesize that three types of costs
are prevalent: personnel training costs, consultantsfees and costs
to adjust existing information systems. We also hypothesize
thatharmonization benefits are noticeable for those entities that
make frequent use offoreign finance and for those entities with
majority foreign shareholders. To collectdata, we sent out
questionnaires to the finance directors of listed Romanian
companies.As full application of IAS/IFRS by non-financial
companies has recently beenpostponed until 2007, we also comment on
the benefits and costs of gradual reforms asopposite to a one-step
adoption of IAS/IFRS.
Accounting in Europe
Vol. 4, 2007
Correspondence Address: Mihaela Ionascu, Academia de studii
Economice, facultatea de contabili-
tate si informatica de gestiune, Piata Romana nr. 6, Sector 1,
Bucuresti, 010374, Romania. E-mail:
[email protected]
1744-9480 Print/1744-9499 Online/07/02016938# 2007 European
Accounting AssociationDOI: 10.1080/17449480701727965Published by
Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd on behalf of the
EAA
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Introduction
This paper intends to study the harmonization of Romanian
accounting
with international regulations (EU Directives and International
Accounting
Standards/International Financial Reporting Standards
(IAS/IFRS)) from thevantage point of a wider costbenefit analysis.
Tang (1994) hypothesized that
international regulations will be assimilated only if benefits
will exceed
implementation costs. Romanias transition to an IAS/IFRS-based
system fol-lowed the political decision of the accounting regulator
(The Ministry of
Finance) and represented a radical change of course as the
accounting reform
undertaken soon after the fall of communism had implemented a
Continental
accounting model, the French model.
The new approach was questionable on several grounds. First, the
regulator
tried to harmonize Romanian accounting with the Fourth Council
Directive
and IAS at a time when the European Union had not stated its
position
toward IAS in individual company accounts (European Commission,
1995).
Second, the harmonization regulations targeted a large number of
enterprises,
without taking into account their capacity to implement these
regulations.
Third, such regulations, being an approximation of IAS, were of
no use to
those enterprises that needed financial statements conforming to
IAS; these
enterprises had to perform restatements and therefore incurred
additional costs.
Last, the very attitude of regulators was ambiguous, as 2005
witnessed the
reorientation towards the European Directives and the
postponement of the
application of IAS/IFRS until 2007.Under these circumstances,
several issues arise: is the new direction imposed
by the accounting regulator fitting a trend in the Romanian
business environ-
ment? How extensive was the effort that Romanian enterprises had
to make?
And particularly, is this effort justified from a costbenefit
point of view?
Our paper aims at offering answers to such questions via an ex
post facto analy-
sis of the process of internationalization of Romanian
accounting during 1999
2005. Accordingly, we have surveyed the companies listed on the
Bucharest
Stock Exchange because they were primarily targeted by the
Ministry of
Finance to implement the new regulations. Our research focused
on identifying
and evaluating the costs entailed by the assimilation and
implementation of inter-
national regulations. At the same time, we intended to capture
the opinions of
finance directors of listed companies regarding the
appropriateness of the
decisions made by the accounting regulator from a costbenefit
standpoint.
The Process of Internationalization of Romanian Accounting:
From
Harmonization to Conformity with European Directives and
IAS/IFRS
After the fall of the communist regime, company accounting was
shaped by two
waves of reform (see Table 1). From its very beginning, the
process of accounting
170 I. Ionascu et al.
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Table 1. Recent history of Romanian accounting regulations
Main regulations Objectives Comments
199198Regulations forMarket Economy
Accounting Law no. 82 of 24 December1991, published in the
OfficialJournal no. 265 of 27 December1991
To create an adequate accountingsystem for the marketeconomy
allowing an efficientfiscal control.
Ministry of Finance as the accountingregulator.Internal and
external users of accountinginformation acknowledged.Accounting is
centred on the civil lawconcept of patrimony, also present inFrench
accounting.
Government Decision no. 704 of 14December 1993 approving
certainmeasures of implementation of theAccounting Law no.
82/1991,published in the Official Journal no.303 of 22 December
1993
To implement Accounting Lawno. 82/1991.
Features significant imports from Frenchcompany
accounting.Introduces new accounting principles,valuation rules,
accounting chart, debitingand crediting rules for each
account,standard formats for the financialstatements.
19992005HarmonizationRegulations
1999 Harmonization Regulation:Order of the Minister of Finance
no.403 of 22 April 1999, published in theOfficial Journal no. 480
of 4 October1999
To harmonize the individualaccounts of large enterpriseswith the
Fourth CouncilDirective and withInternational
AccountingStandards.
The Order, applied only as a limitedexperiment, consists of four
parts:Volume I. The Harmonization Regulation;Volume II. IASC
Conceptual Framework;Volume III. IAS/IFRS;Volume IV. Professional
Guides.The third and fourth volumes werepublished separately
later.a
Although the Harmonization Regulationmaintains the accounting
chart, it providesfor more disclosure within the model formatfor
the financial statements.
(Table continued )
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Table 1. Continued
Main regulations Objectives Comments
Consolidation Regulation:Order of the Minister of Finance no.772
of 2 June 2000, published in theOfficial Journal no. 374 of 11
August2000
To enact ConsolidationRegulations.
Regulations consistent with the SeventhCouncil Directive.
Applied only as a limitedexperiment.
2001 Harmonization Regulation:Order of the Minister of
PublicFinance no. 94 of 29 January 2001,published in the Official
Journal no.85 of 20 February 2001
Same objective as 1999Harmonization Regulation.
Maintains the previous structure in fourvolumes.Slightly changes
the 1999 Regulation andallows carve outs for inflation
accountingand consolidation.b
2006presentConformityRegulations
Conformity Regulation:Order of the Minister of PublicFinance no.
907 of 27 June 2005,published in the Official Journal no.579 of 11
July 2005
To divide enterprises into twocategories: (1) those
applyingaccounting regulationsconforming to EuropeanDirectives and
(2) thoseapplying in additionaccounting regulationsconforming to
full IAS/IFRS.
Consequence of the process of preparing foraccession to the
European Union. Changesthe direction of company
accounting,repealing the Harmonization Regulation.All entities will
apply the regulationsconforming to the European Directivespending
their issue (see European DirectivesConformity Regulations below).
For theyear 2006 credit institutions also prepareIFRS financial
statements, while otherpublic interest entities prepare
IFRSfinancial statements only if they haveimplementation capacity.
Furtherregulations governing IAS/IFRSapplication as from 2007 were
announced(see IFRS Conformity Regulations below).
17
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European Directives ConformityRegulations:Order of the Minister
of PublicFinance no. 1752 of 17 November2005, published in the
OfficialJournal no. 1080 bis of 30 November2005
To enact Fourth and SeventhCouncil Directives.
All entities apply the regulations conformingto the European
Directives beginning on 1January 2006.
IFRS Conformity Regulation:Order of the Minister of
PublicFinance no. 1121 of 4 July 2006,published in the Official
Journal no.602 of 12 July 2006
To enact Regulation (EC) no.1606/2002 of the EuropeanParliament
and of the Council.
Mandatory IFRS consolidated financialstatements for listed
companies beginningon 1 January 2007. All credit
institutions(listed and not listed) also apply IFRS intheir
consolidated accounts.Optional IFRS individual financialstatements
for listed companies (targeted atother users than government
institutions).
aInternational Accounting Standards Committee, Standardele
Internationale de Contabilitate 2000 [IAS 2000], translated into
Romanian by the IAS Working Party
headed by Aileen Beattie, Editura Economica, Bucuresti and
respectively Ministerul Finantelor Publice (2001).bFor a list of
changes in the 2001 Harmonization Regulation, see Government of
Romania (2001).
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regulation was a public one, deriving from a legislative process
where the
Ministry of Finance is the main actor.
The first wave of reform came in the early 1990s with the
Accounting Law
which aimed at introducing an accounting system adequate for a
market
economy, a system that allowed an efficient control of the
legality of commercial
transactions and of the fulfilling of the fiscal obligations
(Ministerul Finantelor,
1991). Company law, also passed in 1991, required public
companies and certain
private companies to have an odd number of censors elected by
shareholders
from among themselves with the exception of the accountant
censor.1
The regulations that implemented the Accounting Law, effectively
applied on
1 January 1994, had their inspiration in the French accounting
system and came
with the stated objective of creating an accounting system
compatible with the
Fourth Council Directive2 and International Accounting Standards
(Ministerul
Finantelor, 1994). The latter part of this objective was merely
declarative:
there is no further mention in the text of these regulations of
IAS or compatibility
with IAS.
The various reasons for choosing the French accounting system
are discussed
elsewhere (Feleaga, 1992; Dutia, 1995; Richard, 1995; Roberts,
2000) and com-
prise cultural, political and economic factors.
A second wave of reform started in 1996, when the goals of the
Romanian
Accountancy Development Programme3 sponsored by the UKs
Department
for International Development (DFID, 2000; King et al., 2001)
superposed
with the requirements of international financial institutions.
The World Banks
PSAL I and PSAL II loan agreements had among their objectives
improving
the business environment and required the Romanian government to
modernize
the accounting standards and to implement internationally
recognized accounting
standards (World Bank, 2001, 2003a). The rationale was that such
an accounting
framework would create a favourable environment for direct
investment and
privatization. Ionascu et al. (2006) consider that the Romanian
government
based its decision to adopt IAS/IFRS on financial grounds, while
pursuing inparallel harmonization with the European Directives as
part of the political
objective of joining the European Union. Consequently, in 1999,
the Ministry
of Finance issued a Harmonization Regulation seeking to
harmonize Romanian
large enterprise individual accounts with both the Fourth
Council Directive
and International Accounting Standards.
We cannot but notice that the regulator tried to harmonize
Romanian individ-
ual company accounting with the Fourth Council Directive and IAS
at a time
when the European Union did not have any requirements concerning
IAS/IFRSfor Member States. In addition, Romania went much further
than the European
Unions strategy at that time, introducing IAS/IFRS for the
individual accountsof large companies, listed and not listed, when
the EU had not stated its position
toward IAS in individual company accounts:
174 I. Ionascu et al.
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For those companies which are not directly concerned with the
pressure of
international capital markets and which prepare consolidated
accounts, it is
intended to continue efforts to improve the comparability of
accounts. The
Contact Committee should step up its efforts to facilitate a
harmonised
approach by dealing with practical problems which arise in
connection
with the application of the Directives.
(European Commission, 1995)
As explained above, the decision of the Romanian regulator was
due to the
requirements of the international financial institutions that
most large
state-owned enterprises and all banks be compliant with
international accounting
standards for financial reporting (World Bank, 2001). Asked why
Romania got
ahead of the EU in adopting IAS/IFRS, a representative of the
Ministry ofFinance interviewed by Ionascu et al. (2006) stated:
we got [ahead] on this programme with the international bodies .
. . on theIMF, WB agreements . . . which conditioned granting the
loans [with theadoption of IAS/IFRS] for large entities, those
subject to privatization . . .We assumed a responsibility . . . by
the conditions [imposed] . . . youcould not carry on a finance
agreement with IMF or WB, if you did not
take these steps . . .
The national regulator sought harmonization with both the Fourth
Council
Directive and International Accounting Standards. However, well
before the
time of the 1999 Harmonization Regulation, Romanian accounting
had attained
a significant degree of conformity with the Fourth Council
Directive, as the
Accounting Law and the related regulations were inspired from
French account-
ing. In fact, the regulations adopted in 1999 reflect the
reorientation of the
Romanian regulator towards Anglo-Saxon accounting, via
International
Accounting Standards Committee/International Accounting
Standards Board(IASC/IASB), because the conceptual framework and
the International Account-ing Standards were included as volumes
two and three in the Order 403/1999enacting the 1999 Harmonization
Regulation. This unusual inclusion of the con-
ceptual framework into the text of a national regulation might
indicate the regu-
lators desire to help accountants to understand and apply
standards grounded in
an accounting philosophy little known in Romania. Newly
introduced accounting
principles, such as substance over form and materiality were
justified and
explained by referring to the conceptual framework. Moreover,
the 1999 and
2001 Harmonization Regulations provided that, in the absence of
a relevant
IAS, the directors should draft accounting policies in
accordance with the
Framework for the preparation and presentation of financial
statements
(article 3.5 in both Regulations). Ionascu et al. (2006) found
out that it was the
World Bank who required the inclusion of the conceptual
framework into the
body of the Harmonization Regulation.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 175
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This mixture of accounting philosophies, that is, the
superposing of an Anglo-
Saxon accounting system on a legalistic one, with a national
chart of accounts and
a strong fiscal connection, was evaluated as a cultural
intrusion (Roberts, 2000).
The Ministry of Finance conceived the application of IAS/IFRS as
a gradualprocess to allow the audit market growth to keep pace with
the demand from the
companies and for accountants in companies to be trained in the
new standards
(King et al., 2001, p. 165). For the year ended 31 December
1999, the Harmoni-
zation Regulation and the existing, French-inspired, regulations
were applied
simultaneously by 13 enterprises, forming a representative
sample of listed com-
panies on the stock exchange and certain enterprises of national
interest (Order
403/1999, art. 2, para. 1). In fact, 12 pilot enterprises
volunteered to produceaccounts under both the new system and the
existing one, each being audited
by one of the Big Five (King et al., 2001). Another volunteering
enterprise
was later added as it had received loans from international
financial institutions
which required audited IAS financial statements.
The regulator included in the 1999 Harmonization Regulation the
possibility to
require the application of the National Inflation Accounting
Standard and indeed
the accompanying accounting chart had been adapted accordingly.
Hyperinfla-
tion (as defined in IAS 29) marked the Romanian economic
environment in
the first decade after 1990 (see Table 2) resulting in
decapitalization and taxation
of inflationary profits. In 1995 and 1996, the Ministry of
Finance allowed the cal-
culation of taxable profits on the basis of an inflation
adjusted tax balance sheet,
but this facility was withdrawn in 1997. About the same time,
the accounting reg-
ulator within the Ministry, advised by British consultants,
drafted a national
inflation accounting standard by adjusting the balance sheet
only. By the end
of 1998, the standard was in the process of field testing
(Olimid, 1998), but
was neither issued as a standalone regulation, nor included in
the professional
guides (Volume IV, 1999 Harmonization Regulation). Some of the
13 enterprises
in the field test adjusted their financial statements to
inflation on the basis of IAS
29 (Ministerul Finantelor Publice, 2001).
The 13 enterprises mentioned above were the only ones to ever
apply the 1999
Harmonization Regulation and while it is not certain that it was
meant to be an
Table 2. Yearly inflation rate in Romania during 19902006
Year Inflation rate Year Inflation rate Year Inflation rate
1990 5.1 1996 38.8 2002 22.51991 170.2 1997 154.8 2003 15.31992
210.4 1998 59.1 2004 11.91993 256.1 1999 45.8 2005 9.01994 136.7
2000 45.7 2006 6.561995 32.3 2001 34.5
Source: Romanian National Institute of Statistics.
176 I. Ionascu et al.
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experiment, it remained as such. The issue of Consolidation
Regulations in 2000
was also an experiment: five groups named in the respective
Ministerial Order
participated in this experimental phase, but we could only infer
that it was unsuc-
cessful. The Ministry of Finance has neither published a report,
nor the pro-
fessional guides regarding consolidation and other complex
standards, such as
those concerning accounting for pensions and financial
instruments; the appli-
cation of these standards (IAS 19, IAS 27, IAS 29, IAS 32, IAS
39) remained
optional.
In 2001, the Ministry of Public Finance4 replaced the 1999
Harmonization
Regulation with a slightly different one bearing the same name.
The new regu-
lation was almost a copy of the previous one, but explicitly
carved out IAS 27
and IAS 29. Once the experiments completed, it is possible that
the regulators
feared that Romanian accountants did not possess the skills to
apply these
standards in the absence of a common methodology or professional
guides.
A year before the issue of the 2001 Harmonization Regulation,
the European
Commission proposed the adoption of IAS/IFRS in the consolidated
accounts oflisted companies (European Commission, 2000).
Acknowledging the practical
problems of using IAS/IFRS in individual company accounts, the
Commissiononly encouraged Member States to adopt IAS/IFRS for this
purpose, as thiswould facilitate the preparation of consolidated
accounts in the future (European
Commission, 2000, p. 7). Therefore, the Commission would allow
Member
States to extend the application of full IAS to unlisted
companies and to individ-
ual accounts. Accordingly, we notice that, this time, the
harmonization process
begun with the advice of British experts and at the requirements
of the World
Bank was not so far away from the EUs strategy with respect to
IAS/IFRS,although there were still no legal requirements for the
Member States.
According to the new regulation, financial statements of
eligible enterprises
had to observe the provisions of the Accounting Law, the 2001
Harmonization
Regulation, IASCs conceptual framework and IAS/IFRS. The 2001
Harmoniza-tion Regulation provided for its retroactive application
by restating the year 2000
financial statements of approximately 200 enterprises: listed
companies on the
Bucharest Stock Exchange, certain national enterprises and
companies listed
on the RASDAQ Electronic Exchange.5 Similarly to its
predecessor, the 2001
Harmonization Regulation was to be applied gradually, over a
five-year period,
according to decreasing size criteria, to include all large
enterprises by 31
December 2005. The ultimate large enterprises were those
fulfilling two out
of the three size criteria for the previous year indicated by
the Ministry of
Public Finance: total turnover more than E5 million, total
assets over E2.5
million and average personnel number more than 50.6 According to
the lists pub-
lished by the Ministry of Public Finance, over 1,700
non-financial enterprises had
to apply the Harmonization Regulation by 31 December 2003 (Table
3).
The financial statements of these enterprises had to be audited
by independent
auditors according to the newly issued Government Ordinance
regarding inde-
pendent audit, no. 75 of 1 June 1999. King et al. (2001)
highlight the shortage
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 177
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of auditors and report the provisional arrangements that were
put in place to
qualify as independent auditor.7
For all the other non-financial enterprises, considered small,
the Ministry of
Public Finance issued Simplified Regulations, harmonized with
the European
Directives only. The Simplified Regulations, applicable from 1
January 2003,
represented a simplified version of the Harmonized Regulations
for large
enterprises. Harmonization Regulations were also issued for
banking (2001),
insurance (2001) and brokerage (2002) industries.
According to the initial strategy of the accounting regulator,
from the finan-
cial year 2006 onwards, company accounting should have
functioned at two
speeds: an echelon of large companies applying the Harmonization
Regu-
lations and another echelon of small companies applying a
simplified
version of these regulations. In practice, the attempt to ensure
harmonization
with two accounting frameworks was not a success. Even if
IAS/IFRS wereconsidered a part of the 1999 and 2001 Harmonization
Regulations, the latter
featured two notable carve outs: IAS 27 and IAS 298 (2001
Harmonization
Regulation, para. 3.4). For example, companies could choose if
they wanted
to apply IAS 29 or not: those that did opt for the application
of IAS 29 had
to perform the relevant restatements outside the statutory
accounts not to inter-
fere with the calculation of the taxable income. Stating that
the 2001 Harmoni-
zation Regulation supplemented by the yearly closing rules,
differ significantly
from IAS, the ROSC 2003 country report cites inflation
accounting,
consolidation, the presentation of own shares and the format of
accounts
where masses of additional information, . . . can only confuse
foreign share-holders and potential investors (World Bank,
2003b).
In practice conformity with IAS/IFRS was partial with respect
to: IAS 1, IAS 2,IAS 7, IAS 12, IAS 16, IAS 17, IAS 18, IAS 21 and
IAS 39 (World Bank, 2003b).
Deloitte Audit S.R.L. (2006) also cites IAS 36 with respect to
the determination of
recoverable value. Owing to the strong link between accounting
and taxation, a tax
application of IAS/IFRS was often made, for instance, the
provisions of inter-national standards were applied if they did not
contravene the tax regulations
(Ionascu et al., 2006). Likewise, companies did not appear to
understand that
Table 3. Number of non-financial enterprises having to apply the
Harmoni-zation Regulation for the first time
Financial statements for the year(s) ended on No. of
enterprises
31 December 2000 19731 December 2001 76731 December 2002 41031
December 2003 367
Source: Ministry of Public Finance Orders nos. 94/2001,
990/2002, 705/2003 and
1827/2003.
178 I. Ionascu et al.
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IAS required them to make judgments and often deferred to
Romanian tax laws
(World Bank, 2003b, p. 11). One audit report described the
financial statements
prepared in accordance with the Harmonization Regulation
together with their
interpretation via the year-end secondary legislation as not
being IAS/IFRS com-pliant, but fulfilling the Ministry of Public
Finances taxation requirements
(Deloitte Audit S.R.L., 2006).
Due to the countrys imminent joining of the EU (expected on 1
January
2007), Romanian regulators had to abandon the regulations
harmonized with
the Fourth Directive and IAS and adopt separate regulations
conforming to
the EUs accounting requirements. The 2005 Conformity Regulation
(see
Table 1) announced the issue of two separate types of
regulations: the first con-
forming to the European Forth and Seventh Directives (European
Directives
Conformity Regulations in Table 1), and the second to IAS/IFRS
(IFRS Con-formity Regulation in Table 1), the latter stemming from
the IAS Regulation
(EC) no. 1606/2002.The regulator decided that, for the financial
year 2006, all entities should
prepare financial statements conforming to European Directives
(introduced by
the European Directives Conformity Regulations); some public
interest entities
will also publish IFRS financial statements. This was the end of
the 2001 Harmo-
nization Regulation, and also of the regulators attempt to
harmonize, on its own,
the European Directives and IAS/IFRS.Beginning in 2006, banking
enterprises prepare two sets of financial state-
ments: a statutory one, in accordance with the European
Directives, and a
second one, conforming to IFRS and destined for other users. The
rest of the
public interest entities (insurance companies, entities
regulated and supervised
by the Securities Commission, listed companies, national
companies,
companies consolidated by a parent applying IFRS, etc.) may
prepare an
IFRS set of financial statements only if appropriate
implementation capacity
is available. As this phrase was included in the Conformity
Regulation
without any explanation, we may take it as not precluding the
voluntary appli-
cation of IAS/IFRS.We therefore consider that, contrary to the
original intention of the regulator,
IFRS are now to be applied on a smaller scale. The scope of the
IFRS is reduced,
because the eligibility criterion has changed: for the year
2006, only banks are to
apply them on a mandatory basis, other public interest entities
are to do so only if
they are able to, while enterprises which do not qualify as
public interest entities
are excluded.
The Conformity Regulation stated that EU requirements and the
evaluations
of various supervising and regulating authorities would
determine the con-
ditions for the application of IFRS beginning with the financial
statements of
the year 2007. Owing to Romanias scheduled accession to the EU
on 1
January 2007, new regulations concerning the application of IFRS
by listed
groups were adopted in 2006 (IFRS Conformity Regulation in Table
1) enacting
Regulation (EC) no. 1606/2002 of the European Parliament and of
the Council.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 179
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According to these regulations, starting with the financial year
2007, listed
groups and banking institutions (listed and not listed) will
mandatorily apply
IFRS in their consolidated financial statements only, while the
European Direc-
tives Conformity Regulations remain valid for all reporting to
governmental
institutions. Out of all the options included in Regulation (EC)
no. 1606/2002, the Romanian regulator chose to enforce IAS/IFRS for
the consolidatedfinancial statements of banking institutions only.
Recent history must have
shown that the majority of Romanian enterprises did not have the
capacity to
apply full IAS/IFRS.
The Bucharest Stock Exchange
Forty-eight years after it was closed down by the Communist
authorities,
the Bucharest Stock Exchange (hereafter BSE) reopened in
November 1995.
Ten years later the total market capitalization amounted to
E15.31 billion at
the end of December 2005 (19.30% of GDP) and E21.41 billion in
December
2006 (22% of GDP9) (Table 4). In 1996 RASDAQ securities market
was estab-
lished, as an institutional framework for the exchange of shares
distributed
through the mass privatization programme. There were around
3,700 companies
(out of which over 1,900 suspended) listed on RASDAQ Electronic
Exchange in
December 2005, with a total market capitalization of E2.24
billion. A year later,
the number of RASDAQ companies fell to around 2,400, but the
market capita-
lization increased to E3.13 billion. To create a more attractive
capital market, in
November 2005, the shareholders of the two entities approved the
merger of BSE
Table 4. Market capitalization of BSE and neighbouring stock
exchanges
Stock exchanges
Marketcapitalization
December 2005(euro millions)
GDP 2005 (euromillions)
Marketcapitalization as
percentage ofGDP
AthensExchange
123,033 181,087.5 67.94
Bucharest StockExchange
15,310 79,313.5 19.30
Budapest StockExchange
27,586 87,894.6 31.39
Prague StockExchange
31,059 98,417.5 31,56
Bulgarian StockExchangeSofia
4,279 21,448.1 19.95
Warsaw StockExchange
79,353 243,398.2 32.60
Sources: www.feas.org, www.fese.be, www.bvb.ro,
www.eu.int/comm/eurostat/
180 I. Ionascu et al.
-
and RASDAQ Electronic Exchange. Already a single legal entity,
with most
RASDAQ companies traded on BSEs platform, the combined
capitalization as
a percentage of GDP did not change significantly in 2006,
compared to 2005
(22% of GDP).
In December 2005, there were 64 domestic companies listed on
BSE, out of
which 20 in tier I and 44 in tier II. To qualify for tier I
listing, a company had
to fulfil a number of general, financial and managerial
requirements such as:
(i) a share capital of at least E8 million, (ii) at least three
years of business oper-
ations, (iii) positive earnings for two of the previous three
years (excluding finan-
cial income), (iv) certain managerial aspects, regarding the
expertise and moral
integrity of management, cash flows for the previous year,
business plan for
the next two years and (v) at least 15% of the issued
outstanding shares (repre-
senting a minimum of 75,000 shares) must be held by at least
1,800 public share-
holders. Tier II companies were required a minimum share capital
of E2 million
and the filing of an annual, externally audited report.10
In 2001, BSE initiated the plus (transparency) tier; any listed
company can apply
for plus tier listing, while maintaining its listing in the
original tier. The main con-
dition was to adhere to BSEs corporate governance code, a code
based on OECDs
principles. Annual and interim financial statements of plus tier
companies must be
prepared according to both Romanian accounting regulations and
IFRS and ought
to be available on the issuers website in Romanian and
English.
According to BSE regulations, listed companies should disclose
information to
the investing public enabling it to make investment decisions.
The financial infor-
mation available on BSEs website is limited and includes certain
headings and the
corresponding amounts from issuers balance sheets and profit and
loss accounts,
overdue payments and average numbers of employees. In February
2006, we sur-
veyed the websites of listed companies to assess the financial
information avail-
able. There was only one company listed on the plus tier because
it included
BSEs corporate governance code in its Articles of Association
but its website
did not feature any financial reports. Of the 20 companies
listed in tier I, only
five had links to their annual reports including financial
statements (e.g. 2004
annual report). Two companies used IFRS to prepare their
financial statements,
while the other three applied the Harmonization Regulation. Five
other tier I com-
panies featured annual or interim management reports; one of
these included
interim financial reports for the year 2005. Just five tier II
companies (out of 44)
included links to their full 2004 annual reports or financial
statements, all of
them prepared according to the Harmonization Regulation. The
level of financial
information disclosure through company websites has decreased
compared to pre-
vious years, as some companies ceased to include links to their
annual reports.
Previous IAS/IFRS Transition Costs Research
Research in IAS/IFRS harmonization costs is only in its
incipient phase, and weare not aware of related studies published
in academic journals. Several surveys
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 181
-
were carried out by audit and financial services firms, but
their results should be
cautiously evaluated as detailed references are not always
available and their
results are not validated according to rigorous scientific
criteria.
These surveys revealed that the effort to implement IAS/IFRS is
significant.JMH Financial Services11 survey of 1,000 British
companies estimated an
average compliance cost of around 360,000. This figure is even
higher for a
top 500 company (446,000), or for companies with a market
capitalization
between 1 billion and 2 billion (625,000), and in excess of 1
million for
companies worth more than 2 billion.
A survey of listed companies in 12 European countries undertaken
by the
French accounting firm Mazars SA (Mazars, 2005) in April 2005
revealed that
60% of the Polish companies surveyed consider that moving to
IFRS is a
major cost, with only 30% of the respondents judging that
benefits will outweigh
costs. The same opinion regarding the size of IFRS transition
costs is shared by
companies in Belgium and Luxembourg, but with a more optimistic
costbenefit
outlook (55%). Surprisingly, only 20% of Czech companies believe
that IFRS
costs are sizeable (one of the lowest percentages in Europe),
while 92% of
these companies have subcontracted the relevant accounting
services (a percen-
tage much larger than the average of 59%). Moreover, 64% of
Czech companies
expect the benefits linked to the move to IFRS to exceed related
costs.
A survey conducted in JanuaryFebruary 2004 for Atos Consulting
(Atos
Consulting, 2004) asked 200 top listed companies from the UK,
France,
Germany and the Netherlands if their expected IAS/IFRS
implementationcosts would exceed E1 million. It seems that this
estimate is too pessimistic,
as 71% of the surveyed companies in the final implementation
phase consider
that the final amount will be less than that and only 19% think
that this value
will be exceeded. Only 4% of companies that have started the
implementation
phase consider that their costs will rise beyond the E1 million
threshold. The
authors nevertheless conclude that IAS/IFRS implementation costs
are underes-timated and the related projects are underfinanced.
Only 40% of the surveyed
companies expect IFRS to increase shareholder value through
greater transpar-
ency of reporting and ease of access to capital markets.
However, 47% of the
surveyed companies anticipate share price fluctuations and 20% a
decrease in
shareholder value. The results single out UK companies as
failing to recognize
a potential positive impact, possibly because of more similarity
between UK
accounting standards and IAS/IFRS.The biggest issue reported by
the companies on the Continent surveyed is
retraining staff to be conversant in IFRS (ranked second in the
UK) followed
by technical accounting expertise (ranked top in the UK). All
companies
mention modifying systems and re-engineering processes as the
third and
fourth challenges, respectively.
A survey conducted in May 2005 for PricewaterhouseCoopers
(Romir
Monitoring, 2004) on a sample of approximately 3,000 people,12
covering
Russian general businesses, audit firms, academics and students
ended with
182 I. Ionascu et al.
-
excessively optimistic results. An overwhelming majority
believes that IAS/IFRS should be implemented partially (44%) or
completely (39%) from 2010
onwards. IFRS were used by a small percentage (11%) of Russian
companies,
but over 80% of the respondents are confident that partial or
full transition
from Russian accounting to IFRS will be feasible. Although the
average level
of international standards knowledge was assessed as basic, the
respondents
opinions did not depend on this variable.
The issue of costs related to Romanian accounting harmonization
with IAS/IFRS has not been discussed elsewhere. Although the
Ministry of Finance
stated that the 1999 Harmonization Regulation was based on a
pilot study of a
sample of 13 companies, the results of this study were never
made available to
the public. Accordingly, we cannot know if the regulator was
aware of the
effort required to assimilate and apply IAS/IFRS.In the context
of implementing the European Accounting Directives, Day and
Taylor (2005) underline the importance of sufficient
administrative and regulat-
ory capacity at the standard setters in the applicant countries.
This prevails over
the exercise of drafting legislation, and the European
Commission assessed the
administrative capacity of the responsible ministries as a part
of its more
general benchmarking process. In the specific case of the
Harmonization Regu-
lation, the issue of the implementation capacity can be raised
both at the regula-
tors level and at enterprise level. The important matter of
effectively translating
regulations into local languages has been highlighted elsewhere
(Larson and
Street, 2004; Day and Taylor, 2005) and current and updated IFRS
translations
widely available are essential for the effective implementation
of IFRS (Larson
and Street, 2004). In this context, we note that the first
official Romanian trans-
lation of the IAS was published in 2000, even though the
Harmonization Regu-
lation was meant to be applied for the first time to the
financial statements of the
same year.
As to the Professional Guides anticipated as Volume IV of the
Order 403, just
Part I was ever published (in September 2001), while the
accounting body
CECCAR edited its own professional guides for individual
IAS/IFRS in 2004.A four-week intensive IAS course taught by British
accountants from the Insti-
tute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland was held at the
Ministry of Finance in
the first half of 1997 as part of the Romanian Accountancy
Development
Programme. The audience was limited and included: employees of
the Ministry,
from both Accounting and Taxation Divisions, a few academics and
representa-
tives from the local professional accounting body CECCAR. A
similar
course, also given by British accountants at the beginning of
2001 and held at
the main business school in the country, was aimed at academics
(with around
100 people attending).
Meanwhile international accounting firms started their own
IAS/IFRS coursesas part of their consulting activities: at least
one Big Five firm was already oper-
ating such a project in 1999. CECCAR, the Romanian association
of accountants,
has organized IAS/IFRS courses since 2001.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 183
-
One cannot underestimate the implementation difficulties that
eligible enter-
prises faced, making the recourse to professional accounting
firms almost a
necessity.
Our contacts in the business milieu suggest that there is a
perception that the
decision to introduce the 1999 Harmonization Regulation did not
take into
account the enterprises capability of implementation, nor its
effects on eligible
enterprises. Hereby is the remark of one finance director of a
listed company:
[. . .] it would have been better to fill in this questionnaire
56 years ago.[. . .] Our company was put at a disadvantage by the
application of theOrder 94/2001 owing to [certain accounting
treatments] that had led tothe taxation of inflationary gains
during the first years (20012003), finan-
cial losses in 2004 and probably in 2005. The non-application of
IAS 29
decided by the Ministry of Finance led to an increase in
accounting
profit and therefore in income tax. The review of the financial
statements
by the County Directorate for Fiscal Control gave us many
troubles and
there were unending discussions because they were not
sufficiently
trained to check the application of these regulations.
Given these circumstances, our study intends to identify and
evaluate the costs of
harmonizing Romanian accounting with international regulations
and capture the
perception of finance directors regarding the regulators
decisions, all from a
costbenefit vantage point. We recognize that even before the
issue of the Har-
monization Regulations, Romanian accounting was already in line
with the
Fourth Council Directive in most respects. Accordingly, the
implementation
costs of these Regulations were mainly due to the IAS/IFRS
component. Weshall keep in mind that Romanian Harmonization
Regulations are only a rough
application of IAS/IFRS, and that restatement costs may be also
incurred toensure full IAS/IFRS compliance.
Research Hypotheses
The three main objectives pursued by our study are: (i) to
identify the extent to
which Romanian companies feel the need for IAS/IFRS; (ii) to
identify andevaluate the costs involved in the harmonization of
Romanian accounting with
international regulations; and (iii) to capture the perception
of finance directors
regarding the costs and benefits linked to the harmonization
process. We have
built the research hypotheses upon these objectives.
A. Voluntary Adoption of IAS/IFRS
In order to evaluate the direction imposed by the accounting
regulator, we tried to
identify if there existed an independent trend to use IAS/IFRS.
As late as 2003,the demand for transparent financial statements was
described as low, owing to
184 I. Ionascu et al.
-
underdeveloped capital markets, collateral-based lending, and a
general lack of
understanding of free market principles (World Bank, 2003b, p.
14). Conse-
quently, we believe that a certain need for a transparent
accounting framework,
such as IAS/IFRS or US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
(GAAP),could be felt by enterprises interested in receiving foreign
finance.13 It is probable
that these enterprises began the voluntary application of
IAS/IFRS even beforethe regulators attempt to harmonize Romanian
accounting.
Since the Harmonization Regulations were an approximate
application of
IAS/IFRS, we conjecture that enterprises needing full IFRS
financial statementswill therefore practice double reporting at
present. As large enterprises have the
highest potential for obtaining foreign finance, we believe that
it is they who need
IAS/IFRS financial statements and therefore will prepare two
sets of financialstatements. Accordingly, we formulate the
following hypotheses:
HA1: Enterprises making recourse to foreign financial markets
have applied IAS/IFRS before they became mandatory through the
Harmonization
Regulations.
HA2: Enterprises making recourse to foreign financial markets
prepare two sets of
financial statements.
HA3: Large enterprises prepare two sets of financial
statements.
B. Harmonization Costs
Based on certain preliminary discussions and signals from the
business milieu,
we believe that harmonization costs consist primarily of
personnel training
costs, consultants fees and costs of adjusting information
systems. Large
enterprises incur significant costs to prepare and report
accounting information
as explained by the increased volume and complexity of their
transactions, but
also because of possible geographical dispersion. We do not
believe that, at
least in the implementation phase, large companies were able to
draw on the
benefits of reporting standardization, such as shared service
centres, and
thus lower their harmonization costs. Moreover, some of these
companies
might have applied IAS/IFRS to fulfil their own information
needs, thusexceeding the legal requirements of the Harmonization
Regulation. If so, it
is possible that such companies would have incurred additional
costs entailed
by the application of the optional inflation accounting and
consolidation
standards.
For that reason, we believe that the implementation costs of
large companies
were the highest. As Romanian harmonization regulations are only
a rough appli-
cation of IAS/IFRS, enterprises needing IFRS financial
statements have per-formed restatements that may entail additional
costs. As a result, some
enterprises have organized, within the Accounting Department, a
special unit
charged with IAS/IFRS restatement.For these reasons we posit
that:
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 185
-
HB1: Harmonization costs consist mainly of personnel training
costs, consultantsfees and costs of adjusting information
systems.
HB2: Large enterprises incurred bigger IAS/IFRS implementation
costs than therest of the enterprises.
HB3: Enterprises with double reporting incur higher
implementation costs.
C. Costs and Benefits
Based on certain preliminary discussions and signals from the
business milieu,
we anticipate that, on the whole, finance directors of listed
companies consider
that the benefits of the implementation of IAS/IFRS do not cover
relatedcosts. Nevertheless, we expect that the costbenefit
relationship be evaluated dif-
ferently by different types of enterprise. For example, we
believe that companies
wholly or majority-owned by foreign capital and companies making
recourse to
foreign finance will deem benefits to exceed IAS/IFRS
implementation costs.
HC1: Finance directors judge that IAS/IFRS implementation
benefits do notcover related costs.
HC2: Finance directors of enterprises that request foreign
finance regularly
consider IAS/IFRS implementation benefits higher than related
costs.HC3: Finance directors of companies wholly or majority-owned
by foreign
capital consider IAS/IFRS implementation benefits higher than
relatedcosts.
Methodology
In October 2005 we e-mailed a questionnaire accompanied by a
cover letter to the
finance directors of companies listed on the BSE, that is, to 18
tier I companies
and 44 tier II companies. The design of the questionnaire was
based on prelimi-
nary discussions that we had with finance directors from three
listed companies.
The initial response was very low, so we phoned each finance
director and
reminded him or her of the questionnaire. Thirty-eight
questionnaires were
returned, achieving a response rate of 61%. The first
questionnaire was returned
in the second half of October 2005 and the last by the end of
February 2006. The
respondents asked for complete confidentiality with respect to
the identification
of their company.
Data were analysed with the functions of SPSS. The associations
between
nominal and ordinal variables were tested using the Fisher exact
test, as there
were too few observations for a valid application of the
chi-square test. To test
for correlations between numerical and nominal variables we
chose the
MannWhitney test and for the investigation of correlations
between numerical
variables, we performed a linear regression analysis. Ordinal
and logistic
regression models were also used to explore possible
correlations between
other types of variables and ordinal or dichotomic variables.
The type, nature
and values of variables employed are described in Table 5.
186 I. Ionascu et al.
-
The first 12 variables result from the questionnaire, while the
last one,
Company Size, was operationalized as the market capitalization
on 23 December
2005, the last transaction day on the BSE, translated in euros
at the National
Banks exchange rate on the same day.
Results and Findings
We analyse the research results according to the three
objectives stated above.
Table 5. Definition of variables
No. Label Measure Values
1. Type of reporting Nominal Harmonization regulations
only;restatement; full IAS/IFRS
2. Date ofimplementationa
Nominal Before Harmonization Regulations becamemandatory; after
HarmonizationRegulations became mandatory
3. Type of cost Nominal Multiple response: training of
personnel;adjustment of information systems;consultants fees;
double reporting
4. Most important cost Nominal Open-ended question5.
Implementation
costsScale Continuous
6. Budgets Nominal Has budgeted; has not budgeted7. Advantages
Nominal Multiple response: adequacy for capital
markets; access to foreign financialmarkets; solutions for
transactions notyet regulated; relevant information formanagers;
simpler accounting
8. Costs and benefits Ordinal Benefits lower than costs;
presently,benefits lower than costs; benefits exceedcosts
9. Participation inIAS/IFRStraining
Nominal Has participated in IAS/IFRS training; hasnot
participated in IAS/IFRS training
10. Use of consultants Nominal Has used consultants; has not
usedconsultants
11. Recourse to foreignfinancial markets
Ordinal Inexistent; envisaged; occasional; frequent
12. Type of capital Nominal Wholly or majority-owned by
Romanianinvestors; wholly or majority-owned byforeign investors
13. Company size(marketcapitalization)
Scale Continuous
aWe requested the year of application of IAS/IFRS and checked it
against the appendices to the Har-monization Regulation to
determine if these enterprises have applied IAS/IFRS before the
Regulation
became mandatory for them.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 187
-
A. Voluntary Adoption of IAS/IFRS
To investigate if there is a trend for the voluntary adoption of
IAS/IFRS byRomanian companies we have defined two nominal
variables: Type of Reporting
and Date of Implementation of IAS/IFRS (see Tables 6 and 7).We
noticed that a small percentage of listed companies (10.5%) applied
IAS/
IFRS before the Harmonization Regulations became mandatory for
them. Even
after the issue of the Harmonization Regulations, a significant
percentage of
listed companies (65.8%) was still not interested in IAS/IFRS
financial state-ments, neither restating, nor applying full
IAS/IFRS.
Since we believe that obtaining foreign financing is the main
reason for which
companies used IAS/IFRS before the Harmonization Regulations
became man-datory, we defined an ordinal variable that captures the
interest of finance direc-
tors in foreign financial markets Recourse to Foreign Financing
(see Table 8).
The association between Recourse to Foreign Financing and Date
of
Implementation is statistically significant and we therefore
accept hypothesis
HA1 (Fishers exact test, two-sided, p 0.048, see Appendix B,
Table B1). Com-panies requesting foreign capital frequently or
occasionally have applied IAS/IFRS before the Harmonization
Regulations became mandatory. On the other
hand, companies not requesting foreign financing have done so
after the issue
of the Harmonization Regulations.
The association between Type of Reporting and Recourse to
Foreign Financing
is also statistically significant and we therefore accept
hypothesis HA2 (Fishers
exact test, two-sided, p 0.012, see Appendix B, Table B2).
Companiesmaking frequent recourse to foreign financial markets have
double reporting,
while companies not requesting foreign finance or doing so only
occasionally,
prepare financial statements conforming to the Harmonization
Regulations.
Table 6. Type of reporting
Type of reporting Frequencies Percentages
Harmonization Regulations only 25 65.8%Restatement 10 26.3%Full
IAS/IFRS 3 7.9%Total 38 100%
Table 7. Date of implementation of IAS/IFRS
Date of implementation Frequencies Percentages
After the Harmonization Regulations 34 89.5%Before the
Harmonization Regulations 4 10.5%Total 38 100%
188 I. Ionascu et al.
-
It is noteworthy that, even now, enterprises having applied
IAS/IFRS beforethey became mandatory according to the timetable
included in the Harmonization
Regulations, prepare two sets of financial statements. The
correlation between
Type of Reporting and Date of Implementation is revealed by
Fisher exact test
(two-sided, p 0.009, see Appendix B, Table B3). In other words,
the regu-lations introduced by the Ministry of Finance did not help
those enterprises
needing financial statements complying with IAS/IFRS: such
enterprises prac-tice double reporting at present, too.
We investigated the relationship between Company Size, as
operationalized by
market capitalization (see Table 9) and Type of Reporting. As
there is a signifi-
cant association between Company Size and Type of Reporting
(MannWhitney
U 95,000, exact sig., p 0.038), it follows that large
enterprises prepare twosets of financial statements. We therefore
accept hypothesis HA3. This is
explained by the higher potential of large enterprises to obtain
foreign financing,
which led to an application of IAS/IFRS on their own initiative
rather than as animposed legal provision. This explanation is
backed statistically, as large enter-
prises tend to request foreign finance frequently or
occasionally (MannWhitney
U 60,000, exact sig., p 0.007).We can safely conclude that there
is no manifest demand for IAS/IFRS in the
Romanian business milieu, only a small number of listed
companies preparing
such financial statements out of the need to obtain foreign
financing. Accord-
ingly, the decision of the regulator does not appear to be based
on an existing
Table 9. Market capitalization
Descriptive statistics Values (euros)
Mean 197,345,013Median 27,330,039Standard deviation
452,175,996Minimum 1,382,319Maximum 2,626,441,529Sum
7,499,110,501Observations 38
Table 8. Recourse to foreign financial markets
Recourse to foreign financing Frequencies Percentages
Inexistent 11 28.9%Envisaged 17 44.7%Occasional 4 10.5%Frequent
6 15.9%Total 38 100%
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 189
-
trend; Harmonization Regulations do not help companies needing
IAS/IFRSfinancial statements as restatements are still
necessary.
B. Harmonization Costs
According to Table 10, we identified four main types of
harmonization costs:
personnel training costs, adjustment of information systems,
consultants fees
and double reporting. For that reason we accept hypothesis
HB1.
We notice that almost all listed companies surveyed (94.7%)
incurred person-
nel training costs. Personnel were trained via training courses
(86.8% of compa-
nies variable 9 from Table 5, Participation in IAS/IFRS
Training).Consequently, we might believe that these companies
intended to assimilate
and apply international regulations with their own staff, rather
than externalize
the accounting function. Even though companies intended to
implement IAS/IFRS with their own staff, the actual procedures were
supervised by a pro-
fessional accounting firm, as 65.8% of companies indicated
significant consult-
ants fees.
The companies surveyed mentioned other IAS/IFRS implementation
costs,such as: audit costs (seven companies), documentation costs
(one company)
and remuneration costs (one company). Since the financial
statements prepared
in accordance to the Harmonization Regulation had to be audited,
all companies
actually incurred audit costs.
Taking into account the lack of qualified personnel and the
delays in the pub-
lishing of IAS/IFRS translations and implementation guides, we
are inclined tobelieve that, at least in the incipient phase, the
international accounting firms
which were auditing the financial statements were also involved
in their restate-
ment in accordance with the Harmonization Regulation.14
It is widely recognized that auditors prepare financial
statements on behalf
of their clients because clients lack financial reporting
expertise and there-
fore expect the auditors to prepare them. However, clients
emphasize that
audit firms gradually transfer knowledge to company staff, who
then can
take over the drafting of financial statements.
(World Bank, 2003b, p. 6)
Table 10. Occurrence of IAS/IFRS adoption costs
Type of cost Frequencies Percentages
Training of personnel 36 94.7%Adjustment of information systems
27 71.1%Consultants fees 25 65.8%Double reporting 9 23.7%Total n/a
n/a
190 I. Ionascu et al.
-
Apparently, a number of companies in our sample received, from
the same pro-
fessional accounting firm, auditing and consulting services that
could have
included training courses or adjusting of information systems.
It seems that wher-
ever accounting firms gave their assistance in areas related to
the implementation
of the Harmonization Regulation, companies had difficulties in
distinguishing
between audit costs and other implementation costs. We therefore
express reser-
vations on the components of IAS/IFRS implementation costs as
they were sup-plied by the respondents, because it is possible that
some of them overlapped and
were reported in a less precise way.
A percentage of 36.8% of the finance directors indicated
personnel training
costs as the most onerous type of cost (see Table 11).
Based on the answers received (only 23 of the 38 enterprises
that returned the
questionnaires disclosed the amount of the costs), we have
calculated an average
implementation cost of approximately 30,000 euros (see Table
12), 78.26% of
respondents indicating costs lower than 50,000 euros (see Table
13).
These costs are insignificant when weighed against the annual
operating
expenses reported by listed companies: the average IAS/IFRS
implementationcost represents only 0.035% of the average operating
expenses in 2004.15 Com-
pared to the results of other similar studies done in the
European Union (e.g. JMH
Financial Services16), the costs of Romanian enterprises that
have implemented
IAS/IFRS are much lower. This is explained by the features of
the local labour
Table 11. Most important cost
Most important cost Frequencies Percentages
Training of personnel 14 36.8%Consultants fees 11 28.9%Audit 7
18.4%Adjustment of information systems 4 10.5%Total n/a n/a
Table 12. Implementation costs of IAS/IFRS
Descriptive statistics Values (eurosa)
Mean 30,348.12Median 15,000Mode 30,000Standard deviation
35,506.80Minimum 2,762.69Maximum 151,947.88Sum
698,010.40Observations 23
aTranslated into euros at an average exchange rate for the
period November
2005February 2006.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 191
-
market, still characterized by low costs: for the year 2004 the
National Institute
for Statistics calculated an average gross salary of
approximately 200 euros
(around 270 euros in 2005).17 The majority of harmonization
costs (personnel
training costs, consultants fees, audit, adjustment of software
applications) are
composed of highly qualified professional services delivered at
much lower
costs than in Western Europe. It has also been suggested that
these comparatively
low costs might be due to a possible minimal application of the
Harmonization
Regulation. As explained earlier, the regulator permitted the
carve outs of IAS
27 and IAS 29; at their turn, the preparers, not accustomed to
making judgments,
often went for a partial or tax application of a number of
standards.
The amounts reported as IAS/IFRS costs must be regarded with
caution, asthe respondents were asked to make a global evaluation
which was not always
consistent in terms of its components (e.g. audit costs).
The second hypothesis, HB2: Large enterprises incurred bigger
IAS/IFRSimplementation costs than the rest of the enterprises, was
tested using the follow-
ing regression model (Table 14):
Ci a0 a1MCi 1i
where Ci implementation costs of company i and MCi market
capitalizationof company i.
Table 13. Size of costs
Cost intervals (euros) Frequencies Percentages
Below 50,000 18 78.26%Between 50,000 and 100,000 4 17.39%Over
100,000 1 4.35%Total 23 100%
Table 14. Regression results
Statistics Values
R 0.696R-square 0.484a0 17,479.552(t) (4,206)a1 0.372(t)
(4.331)F 18.759DurbinWatson 1.986Observations 22
Significant at 0.001.
192 I. Ionascu et al.
-
To improve results, we have eliminated an outlier, that is, a
single value 4
times higher than the standard deviation. In addition to this,
as the two variables
were disproportionate, we have multiplied the values of MC by
0.0001 to avoid
obtaining a too low a1.We therefore accept hypothesis HB2,
market capitalization explaining 48.4%
of costs variation. The fact that large companies incur
proportionately higher
implementation costs could be explained by the increased volume
and complex-
ity of their transactions, but also by possible geographical
dispersion. The results
imply that the potential economies of scale of large companies
were insufficient
to proportionately lower their implementation costs.
Owing to the specific mandatory application of IAS/IFRS, most
listed compa-nies (68.7%) have anticipated implementation costs and
included them in their
budgets. We have noticed that large companies have budgeted
IAS/IFRS coststo a higher extent than the other companies
(MannWhitney U 82,000,exact sig., p 0.019). This is justified if we
take into account the fact thatlarge companies expected higher cost
amounts and have thus included them in
their budgets.
We also accept the last hypothesis, HB3: Enterprises with double
reporting
incur higher implementation costs (MannWhitney U 30,500, exact
sig.,p 0.039). This is due to the fact that Romanian Harmonization
Regulationswere rough approximations of IAS/IFRS and companies
needing IAS/IFRSfinancial statements had to perform restatements
leading to additional costs.
C. Costs and Benefits
The vast majority of companies surveyed (89.5%) consider that
IAS/IFRS allowa better communication on the capital market, by
offering more relevant infor-
mation to investors; half of them welcome the opportunity to
access international
financial markets.
A total of 60.5% of respondents consider that IAS/IFRS are a
good source ofinformation for managers, revealing that the IAS/IFRS
are not only relevant toexternal parties, but also for internal use
of the management. These results are
consistent with the findings of Colwyn Jones and Luther (2005)
who investigate
the possible effects of IFRS on German controlling.
The analysis of data also showed that finance directors who did
not have formal
IAS/IFRS training did not consider that IAS/IFRS are adequate
for listed com-panies (Fishers exact test, two-sided, p 0.005), as
they lacked the necessaryexpertise.
We have defined Costs and Benefits, an ordinal variable, to
assess finance
directors opinions with respect to the relationship between the
costs and benefits
implied by the adoption of IAS/IFRS (see Table 15).Given that
60% of the finance directors surveyed deem IAS/IFRS implemen-
tation benefits insufficient to cover related costs, we accept
hypothesis HC1.
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 193
-
We have used ordinal regression models to test hypotheses HC2
and HC3 con-
cerning associations between the ordinal variable Cost and
Benefits and the vari-
ables Type of Capital or Recourse to Foreign Financial Markets,
but also to test
potential associations between Cost and Benefits and Company
Size. We have
also grouped the data in order to run logistic regression
models. No correlation
resulted between the variable Cost and Benefits and the other
variables con-
sidered. Consequently, we reject these two hypotheses (HC2 and
HC3) out of
insufficient evidence to support the relationship between Cost
and Benefits, on
the one hand, and Type of Capital and Recourse to Foreign
Financing, on the
other hand.
A possible explanation why the costbenefit relationship was not
evaluated
differently by companies wholly or majority-owned by foreign
capital and com-
panies making recourse to foreign finance could be that these
businesses could
not equate the financial statements prepared under the
Harmonization Regulation
with IAS/IFRS financial statements. Companies could not fully
benefit fromIAS/IFRS financial statements (such as an easier access
to foreign finance),since additional restatements were
necessary.
Summary and Conclusions
This paper is aimed at studying the harmonization of Romanian
accounting with
international regulations (European Directives and IAS/IFRS)
from the vantagepoint of a wider costbenefit analysis. To achieve
this, we focused on the identi-
fication and evaluation of costs entailed by the assimilation
and application of
international regulations. From the same costbenefit
perspective, we attempted
to capture the perception of finance directors of listed
companies with respect to
the adequacy of the decisions made by the Romanian accounting
regulator.
The results show that the harmonization decision of the Romanian
accounting
regulator did not fit an existing trend in the business milieu;
only a few companies
prepare IAS/IFRS conforming financial statements out of the need
to obtainforeign financing. Moreover, the benefits of the
implementation of the Harmoni-
zation Regulations were perceived as not being significant by
the majority of
finance directors of listed companies, even though
implementation costs were
rather low.
Table 15. Assessment of costs and benefits
Costs and benefits Frequencies Percentages
Benefits lower than costs 9 25.7%Presently, benefits lower than
costs 12 34.3%Benefits exceed costs 14 40%Total 35 100%
194 I. Ionascu et al.
-
Based on the research results we can question the decision of
the Ministry of
Finance to implement Harmonization Regulations, and the
particular manner
chosen to carry it out. The fact that only a few companies were
interested in
IAS/IFRS may suggest that the Harmonization Regulations
submitted Romaniancompanies to an unjustified effort. The comment
made by a finance director asked
to point out an advantage of the adoption of IAS/IFRS is
illustrative in thisrespect: there is no advantage, it is an
obligation.
The decision for gradual reforms that led to an approximate
application of
IAS/IFRS (a tax application in certain audit reports) was of no
assistance tothose companies that needed or would need financial
statements conforming to
IAS/IFRS. These companies had to perform restatements and incur
additionalcosts. The actual application of the Harmonization
Regulation proved true the
European Commissions warning that as far as the national
statutory individual
accounts are concerned, regulatory and tax requirements could
make the use of
IAS inappropriate or even invalid (European Commission, 2000, p.
6).
The 2005 decision of the regulator to withdraw the Harmonization
Regulations
and limit the application of full IAS/IFRS to the consolidated
accounts of publicinterest entities is equivalent, in our view, to
the tacit recognition that their issue
was made in haste, before the European Union stated its position
towards IAS/IFRS in individual company accounts. Even within the
World Banks constraints,
the regulator could have limited the scope of the Harmonization
Regulations to
public interest entities only, without going beyond the EUs
applicable policy.
We are of the opinion that giving up the size criterion in the
application of
IAS/IFRS is a decision that fits the characteristics of the
Romanian economicmilieu, as, with the notable exception of public
interest entities, the main users
of accounting information are the state and the creditors from
the banking sector.
However, we are aware that adapting to the economic background
is not
necessarily a prerequisite for imposing an accounting system.
Authors such as
Munteanu (2003) believe that large-scale application of IAS/IFRS
may beadvantageous even if it is done in a truncated form and
without an immediate
goal. IAS/IFRS is an advanced accounting system and its
assimilation byRomanian companies could improve the overall quality
of financial reporting.
The accounting profession will certainly benefit by relating to
a conceptual fra-
mework even if imposed within a Ministerial Order, as
accountants will
improve their professional judgement and gain independence from
the public
authority. On the other hand, such benefits are difficult to
quantify and use to
balance implementation costs.
For that reason we agree with the regulators taking note of the
enterprises
capacity of implementation, since, as revealed by our study, for
most listed com-
panies the application of IAS/IFRS is not linked to an immediate
direct benefit,but advantages may become more visible with time.
This could be the reason for
which more than a third (34.3%) of the finance directors
surveyed were of the
opinion that the benefits of adopting IAS/IFRS do not cover
related costs atpresent. The rationale behind the Harmonization
Regulation might have been
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 195
-
reasonable at the time, and with careful preparations, could
have smoothed the
transition to full IFRS, at least for listed companies.
Limitations and Further Research
Out of the 62 companies to whom we have sent questionnaires, 38
returned them
completed, that is, a response rate of 61%. In our opinion, the
low rate of response
is due to the lack of transparency of Romanian companies, a
relic from commu-
nist times when accounting information was secret. At least two
finance directors
replied to our request writing that they cannot provide
information since they
have not received managements permission.
Nevertheless, we may generalize the results of our research to
all listed com-
panies on the BSE, since respondents do not differ from
non-respondents on at
least one important characteristic: company size, as
operationalized by market
capitalization. The application of the t-test shows that
respondents and non-
respondents do not differ on market capitalization (t-test: t
0.491, df 60,sig. two-tailed, p 0.625). However, the variable
Market Capitalization isnot distributed normally (skewness:
statistic 6.536, standard error 0.304).
Accordingly, we have treated the data as non-parametric and
applied the
MannWhitney test. The results of the MannWhitney test converge
with
those of the t-test: the non-respondents do not differ from
respondents on
market capitalization (MannWhitney U 338,000, asymp. sig.,
two-tailed,p 0.088).
Our study revealed a strong causal link between the size of
costs and the
company size, that is, its market capitalization. As only 23
companies (out of
the 38) disclosed the amount of the IAS/IFRS implementation
costs, theaverage IAS/IFRS implementation costs can only be
generalized to the rest ofthe population if, again, there were no
significant differences between the two
groups: companies that disclosed their costs and companies that
did not (includ-
ing those that have not returned the questionnaires). The
results of the t-test
demonstrate that, in relationship with market capitalization,
companies that dis-
closed cost information are not significantly different than
those who did not
provide this information (t-test: t 0.932, df 60, sig.
two-tailed, p 0.355).For the same reasons given above, we have also
applied the MannWhitney
test to check the existence of differences between disclosing
companies and
the rest of the companies. The test results show that the two
groups do not
differ on market capitalization (MannWhitney U 424,000, asymp.
sig.,two-tailed, p 0.721) and thus the average IAS/IFRS
implementation costmay be generalized to all listed companies.
Our study did not evaluate the benefits of adopting IAS/IFRS,
but only theopinions of finance directors concerning related costs
and benefits. As finance
managers had to bear the effort of implementing the actual
assimilation of the
Harmonization Regulations, we are aware of the fact that their
perception may
be biased. The view of finance directors of listed companies is
just one
196 I. Ionascu et al.
-
perspective on the relationship between the costs and benefits
of adopting IAS/IFRS, and investors or financial analysts may have
a different opinion.
For these reasons, we believe that further research is needed to
evaluate the
benefits of adopting the international regulations, possibly in
an international
context. As European Union Member States also face the issue of
the capacity
of implementation of IAS/IFRS by listed groups, such studies
could reveal theeffect of compliance costs on companies
performance. Moreover, since the Har-
monization Regulation was an approximation of IAS/IFRS, this
costbenefitevaluation could also be relevant for the proposed IFRS
for SMEs.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the participants to the INA Research Forum of
the 29th Annual
Congress of the European Accounting Association (Dublin, 2006)
and to the
IFSAMs Track 7, Internationalization of Accounting (Berlin,
2006), in particu-
lar Dr Ladislav Mejzlik, Dr Susan Hughes, Dr Andrei Filip, and
Prof David
Alexander for their helpful comments and suggestions. We
acknowledge the
kind assistance of Mrs Maria Manolescu, former Secretary of
State at the Minis-
ter of Public Finance of Romania. The authors also thank two
anonymous
reviewers of IFSAMs Track 7 for their useful comments. The
financial and logis-
tic support of CNCSIS - Romanian National Academic Research
Council
(Project: Harmonising Romanian Accounting with EU Directives and
Inter-
national Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), grant 1129/2004),
the Faculty
of Accounting and Information Systems, Academy of Economic
Studies Buchar-
est and Bucharest School of Management is gratefully
acknowledged. We are
also grateful to the editor of Accounting in Europe and to two
anonymous
reviewers for their very constructive comments on the
manuscript. Special
thanks to Prof Tudorel Andrei and Prof Dirk Jacobs for their
suggestions regard-
ing data analysis.
Notes
1The censor is not an auditor in the international acceptance of
the word. He is empowered to
supervise the administration of the company, check the legality
of the financial statements
and make sure that these are drawn up in agreement with
supporting documents. He should
also verify if the company regularly records transactions in the
journal and ledger and if the
inventory and valuation of the companys patrimony were done
according to the relevant regu-
lations. The rule was to choose an accountant member of CECCAR,
the Institute of Public and
Licensed Accountants of Romania.2Two years after the adoption of
the Accounting Law, the Romanian government signed the
Association Agreement with the European Community on 1 February
1993.3The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland provided
the technical assistance (ICAS,
1999; King et al., 2001).4On 10 January 2001 the Ministry of
Finance was reorganized and its name was changed into the
Ministry of Public Finance.5Romanian Association of Securities
Dealers Automated Quotation (system).
Costs of Harmonizing Romanian Accounting with International
Regulations 197
-
6Fourth Directive criteria after their third five-yearly
revision in 1994. The Ministry of Public
Finance changed these criteria in 2003. At 31 December 2004, the
final criteria were: total turn-
over more than E7.3 million, total assets over E3.65 million and
average personnel number
more than 50.7The normal procedure comprised three-year training
in an auditors practice, followed by a
series of examinations. The provisional procedure allowed to
some 1,420 individuals who ful-
filled the criteria relating to experience and reputation to
become provisional members of the
Chamber of Auditors (World Bank, 2003b). The setting of the
Chamber of Auditors generated
tensions between it and the professional body CECCAR whose
members were previously
censors of companies eligible to apply the Harmonization
Regulation.8SIC 19 was also carved out by secondary legislation
regulating the financial statements of the
year 2002.9Estimated in March 2007 at RON 342,418 million by the
National Statistical Institute
[www.insse.ro/cms/rw/pages/comunicate/pib.ro.do] and translated
into euros at theaverage exchange rate of 3.5258 RON/euro.
10These listing rules were valid until September 2006 when the
new Rulebook of the Bucharest
Stock Exchange was approved by the National Securities
Commission.11http://www.accountancyage.com/News/113586112Accountants
in accounting firms 16.66%, accountants in general business
companies 50.02%,
students 16.66% and teachers 16.66%.13We have already cited the
case of the thirteenth enterprise in the 1999 pilot test.14It is
also relevant that the few companies which restated their financial
statements to account for
hyperinflation appeared to comply with IAS 29 and these
companies clearly enjoyed the
support of local member firms of international audit firm
networks (World Bank, 2003b, p. 12).15This average was calculated
based on the operating expenses reported by the same companies
that have provided us with information regarding their
implementation costs. For translation
into euros, we have used the average exchange rate published by
the National Bank of
Romania for the year
2004.16http://www.accountancyage.com/News/113586117http://www.insse.ro,
translated into euros at the average exchange rate published by
the
National Bank of Romania for the years 2004 and 2005,
respectively.
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