The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) plans to advise companies to show separately the impact of currency fluctuations on their long-term foreign currency transactions from the current fiscal.

The regulator has asked the companies to put this item on the "equity and liabilities" side of the balance sheet as a separate line item".

"ICAI at its recently held council meeting decided that the debit or credit balance in foreign currency monetary item translation difference account should be shown on the 'equity and liabilities' side," Agrawal said.

The regulator has also written to the finance ministry asking for retention of independent audit trigger at Rs 6 crore for branches of public sector banks.

Last year, a panel comprising officials from the RBI and the finance ministry had recommended that such audit is necessary only when advances from a branch reach Rs 20 crore. "But we feel a large number of bank branches will go out of the purview of audit. We have suggested to the finance ministry that a committee be constituted comprising officers from the CAG, ICAI, RBI and concerned bodies to deliberate the matter before increasing this advance limit," Agrawal said.

According to him, independent information system audits should be made mandatory for all co-operative societies, NGOs and educational trusts as this would ensure transparency and reduce discrepancies.

Agrawal also said ICAI has decided to recommend a new blueprint for companies to merge their accounting standards with IFRS in three phases.

Companies whose net worth is more than Rs 1,000 crore will move to Indian Accounting Standard from April 1, 2015. Those with net worth more than Rs 500 crore, the trigger date should be April 1, 2016. And for listed entities not covered in the above two phases, the deadline will be April 1, 2017, ICAI has told the corporate affairs ministry which in turn has forwarded it to the National Advisory Committee on Accounting Standards. "The net worth computations may be based on the balance sheet for FY'13 or immediately thereafter," Agrawal said. (Indian Express)