International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) - 30 years of progress

In many ways, 1977 marked a year of firsts: the Concorde jet inaugurated regular transatlantic supersonic flight; the first Apple II microcomputers went on sale to the general public; the movie “Star Wars” debuted on the big screen; and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) convened for the first time in an auditorium in Munich, Germany at the 11th World Congress of Accountants. Beginning with 63 members in 1977, IFAC's membership has grown over the past 30 years to now include 157 members and associates in 123 countries and jurisdictions worldwide. At the first meeting of the IFAC Assembly and Council in October 1977, a 12-point work program was developed to guide IFAC committees and staff through the first five years of activities. Many elements of this work program are still relevant today. As part of its 30th anniversary activities, IFAC published a history of the organization,  IFAC: 30 Years of Progress  -Encouraging Quality and Building Trust, which explores the role of member bodies and others in IFAC’s growth and the issues that impacted its development. Further information on organization’s development, including additional historical articles, is available on the IFAC history page.

Accountancy Magazine – celebrating 120 years of people and events that shaped the profession

The first issue of The Incorporated Accountants’ Journal was published in June 1889 by the Society of Accountants and Auditors. In 1938, the magazine was renamed Accountancy. It continued to be published by the Society until 1957 when the Society merged with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). Accountancy remained in the hands of the ICAEW until 2002 when it was sold to the Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer. (The June 1889 issue of The Incorporated Accountants’ Journal is available for viewing online.)

A History of XBRL: The story of our new language

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a royalty-free, international information format designed specifically for business information, also referred to as “interactive data” by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The concept of XBRL is that all individual disclosure items within business reports are assigned unique electronically readable tags (like a barcode). These tags are mapped to taxonomies that are being developed by market constituents and are publicly available on the XBRL website. Taxonomies are, in essence, dictionaries of financial concepts in which each concept is defined and assigned a relationship to other concepts.

XBRL has been a journey of high and lows that met with great success in 2008. Success is defined as (1) the acceptance of this new tool in the broad-based business and business-reporting community and (2) the use of this tool in areas broader than just financial statement information. Those two fundamental beliefs grounded some early decisions that the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) believes will make XBRL a critical foundation for business and government in the decades to come. (Read the AICPA publication XBRL: The story of our new language.)

CICA Chronology of Sustainability Initiatives

The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) has been addressing environmental accounting and reporting issues for almost 20 years. It was a founding member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), whose guidelines for reporting on the social, environmental and economic aspects of a company’s operations are used today around the world. The CICA has also been addressing climate change issues for more than 10 years. It recognized early on the business, accounting and tax implications of climate change impacts and greenhouse gas reduction efforts. It was the first accounting body in the world to publish guidance regarding disclosures about climate change. The CICA Chronology of Sustainability Initiatives provides hyperlink access to PDF documents of selected research and guidance publications issued between 1992 and 2009.