South Africa was the first, and only country that I know of, to adopt the Draft IFRS for SMEs as a national standard, being the GAAP for SMEs that we are all familiar with. This has now been updated by the IASB and been re-issued as IFRS for SMEs. This was adopted by the APB on 13 August as a South African Statement of GAAP. The original text of IFRS for SMEs has been adopted without any changes.

This Statement of GAAP comprises:

· IFRS for SMEs;

· Basis for Conclusions on IFRS for SMEs (which accompanies, but is not part of IFRS for SMEs); and

· Implementation Guidance: (Illustrative Financial Statements, Disclosure checklist and Present Value Tables).

An entity may apply IFRS for SMEs for annual financial statements that are authorised for issue after 13 August 2009, but is not required to do so. The Statement of GAAP for SMEs has been withdrawn for financial periods ending after 31 August 2010, but can still be used until that time.

The relevant AuditMate templates (Pty’s and Prop Pty’s) will be revised over the coming months both for the IFRS for SME update and changes in relevant audit standards. Users can continue to use the same templates as last year and gain the efficiencies of Balancing forward the prior year’s audit file to use for the current year.