The IASB board voted to confirm the one-year deferral, following a public consultation.

The revenue standard was issued jointly by the IASB and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in May 2014 with an effective date of 1 January 2017.

Following widespread concern about the implementation challenges faced by company preparers and accounting firms, the boards on both sides of the Atlantic were forced to jointly delay the effective date for the standard.

Virtually all respondents supported the IASB’s decision to propose a one-year deferral of the effective date of IFRS 15 to 1 January 2018. The majority of respondents agreed with one or more of the reasons for proposing the deferral, set out in the basis for conclusions on the exposure draft. 

A few respondents stated that the continued alignment of the effective date of the respective revenue recognition standards is important to:

• ensure comparability of reporting results between IFRS and US GAAP entities; and
• reduce costs for entities that have both IFRS and US GAAP reporting requirements within the group.

Companies applying International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are allowed to apply IFRS 15 earlier if this fits with their reporting requirements.

The formal amendment to the standard, specifying the new effective date, is likely to be issued in September.

Later this month the IASB will publish a public consultation on proposed clarifications to the standard to help companies with implementation, as proposed by the Transition Resource Group (TRG), which was established by the IASB and the FASB to support companies in implementing the Standard.

The IASB staff paper summarising feedback on the deferral consultation is available here

Further information on the standard is available here