The current problems of harmonization of accounting for small and medium-sized enterprises

Financial statements provide significant information about the financial position and performance of an enterprise. In the global world, it is necessary that the information is comparable at the international level. This requirement poses a problem for small and medium-sized enterprises as they do their reporting in compliance with the national legislations, which are based on Directive 2013/34/EU in the EU member states. No application of the Directive in national legislations guarantees the harmonisation of financial statements. Another direction in harmonisation is the IFRS for Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) which the EU has not acknowledged as a basis for financial statement creation although its significance is not negligible globally – around 80 jurisdictions use it or allow its use currently. The paper aims to analyse the current state of harmonisation of financial statements of small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on the identification of essential differences between the national legislation and the Standard, it attempts to answer the question whether (and how) the financial position and performance of an enterprise will change if the accounting framework changes, i.e., in the case of transfer from reporting based on national legislations to reporting based on the Standard.