The International Accounting Standards Board is an independent and private entity which arose back in 2001. The group was originally created to replace the former International Accounting Standards Committee. The IFRS Foundation maintains all oversight of the IASB.
Under their auspices, the IASB creates, publishes, and approves the International Financial Reporting Standards for the global accounting community. There are presently 14 members of the IASB. The IASB group is headquartered in London, Great Britain.
The constitution of the IFRS foundation gives the IASB full control over all technical and operating issues. This includes pursuing and developing the technical agenda after consulting with the public and the appropriate trustees of the foundation. They also approve and deliver interpretations that the IFRS Interpretations Committee recommends. Finally, they prepare and publish the International Financial Reporting Standards and all accompanying related drafts as laid out in the constitution of the IFRC Foundation.
The IASB itself was originally organized under the auspices of the IFRS Foundation. The foundation itself proves to be a non profit company incorporated in Delaware in the United States on March 8, 2001. The IFRS Foundation oversees all of the tasks that the IASB pursues as well as its strategy and structure. At the same time, the IFRS maintains the responsibility for fund raising for the IASB.
Another governing agency within the IFRS Foundation is the DPOC Due Process Oversight Committee. This trustee committee bears responsibility for the function of overseeing the IASB, as per the foundation’s constitution. The last governing board is the Monitoring Board. It monitors the trustees of the IFRS foundation. It also participates in nominating the Trustees as well as approving all final appointments that the board makes to the Trustees.
There are several technical groups within the framework of the organization of the IFRS Foundation. The International Accounting Standards Board itself is among these. It bears the sole responsibility for setting all International Financial Reporting Standards since 2001.
There is also the IFRS Interpretations Committee. Their job is to create interpretations that the IASB actually approves. It also engages in tasks as requested by the IASB since 2001. Finally there are the various working groups. These different task forces are for particular projects that meet a necessary agenda of the group.
There are also numerous advisory groups within the IFRS Foundation that carry out important functions for the IASB. The ASAF Accounting Standards Advisory Forum gives advice regarding the activities for setting technical standards by the IASB. The IFRS Advisory Council provides advice to both the IFRS foundation and the IASB.
There are also a variety of specific policy committees that serve advisory roles to the IASB and the IFRS foundation. These include the Capital Markets Advisory Committee from 2003, the Effects Analyses Consultative Group of 2012, the Emerging Economies Group from 2011, the Financial Crisis Advisory Group that merged with FASB in 2008, the Global Preparers Forum, the IFRS Taxonomy Consultative Group from 2014, the Joint Transition Resource Group for Revenue Recognition of 2014, and the SME Implementation Group from 2010.
One of the important tasks of the IASB has been to help with the project to converge the differing GAAP and IFRS standards. In order to simplify the understanding of different countries’ accounting and financial statements, the group is trying to bring the standards into some sort of harmony. This will especially help out investors who must read and compare the financial statements and reports of various international companies.