In February 2008, the Canadian AcSB announced that the transition to IFRS will affect interim and annual financial statements for fiscal years beginning on or after January 1, 2011. As part of the conversion, Canadian companies will be required to have comparative figures for 2010 and an opening balance sheet at the beginning of 2010.
The key consideration is the implementation time-line, which would depend on the complexity of the organization, which can take anything from two to five years. The larger multinational organizations especially in banking, insurance, forestry, utilities and full-cost accounting oil and gas industries typically might face some of the more challenging conversion issues. It is more challenging for multi-national organizations which have decentralized operations around the world with legacy IT systems.