IFRS has been with us for more than 20 years, but has it really changed financial reporting in practice?

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, Wayne Basford and Judith Leung are joined by James Scott from JD Scott & Co. to unpack the IFRS Practice Gap: the difference between what the standards say and what companies actually produce.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why IFRS can still become a compliance exercise

• How revenue, consolidation, leases, and business combinations go wrong in practice
• Why technical accounting knowledge is often missing when it matters most
• How preparers, auditors, and regulators all shape the IFRS Practice Gap

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When an audit fails, the issue is not always a bad test or a missed checklist. Sometimes, the real problem is that the engagement partner was missing when it mattered most.

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, Wayne Basford and Judith Leung unpack why the engagement partner must be involved early, not just at final review. They explore how weak planning, poor risk identification, ineffective engagement team discussions, and late file review can all contribute to audit failure.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why the engagement partner’s role starts before final review
• How poor direction and supervision can undermine audit quality
• Why ETDs should be more than a compliance tick-box
• How late partner review can leave audit teams exposed

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

AI in accounting is changing how technical papers, reports, training content, and audit resources are prepared. But faster does not always mean better.

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, Wayne Basford and Judith Leung discuss how AI in accounting can improve efficiency, support technical research, and help professionals produce more polished work.

They also unpack the risks: convincing but flawed analysis, hallucinated references, weak application of IFRS principles, and accounting papers that look right until someone tests the reasoning.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why AI in accounting can speed up technical work
• Why professional judgment still matters under IFRS
• How AI-generated accounting papers can mislead auditors and preparers
• Why facts, contracts, and critical thinking still drive the right answer

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When an audit goes wrong, the problem is not always that the auditor missed the issue. Sometimes, the issue was known but not communicated early, clearly, or to the right people.

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, we unpack audit communication failures. Wayne and Judith discuss why communication with management, those charged with governance, shareholders, creditors, and regulators matters, and how delayed escalation can create pressure to sign an audit opinion without sufficient appropriate audit evidence.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why audit communication failures can undermine audit quality
• Why issues must be escalated beyond the finance team
• How internal control deficiencies, audit adjustments, and modified opinions should be communicated
• Why late communication can increase pressure on auditors and directors
• How the audit report becomes the final communication to stakeholders

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When companies collapse shortly after receiving a clean audit opinion, the same question always follows: where were the auditors? But audit failure rarely begins at the moment the opinion is signed.

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, Wayne Basford and Judith Leung unpack how audit failures quietly develop through a cascade of decisions made throughout the audit process from client acceptance and understanding the business to risk assessment, audit procedures, and failures in professional skepticism.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why audit failures often begin long before sign-off
• How poor client acceptance decisions affect audit quality
• Why understanding the business drives risk assessment
• How “filing exercises” replace genuine auditing
• Why contradictory audit evidence is often ignored
• How audit failure becomes a cascade of decisions

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When companies collapse shortly after receiving a clean audit opinion, attention often turns to technical failures. But what if the deeper issue is commercial pressure inside the audit process itself?

In this episode of the Why Audits Go Wrong series, we explore how commercial pressure, fee dependence, and client retention incentives can quietly erode audit quality. Wayne Basford and Judith Leung unpack the tension between professional skepticism and commercial realities, and explain how audit firms can drift from investigative auditing into “filing exercise” behaviour.

🎧 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why commercial pressure can undermine audit quality
• How fee dependence affects auditor judgment
• Why low audit fees create dangerous audit behaviours
• How firm culture shapes professional skepticism
• Why regulators repeatedly identify commercial pressure in audit failures

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When audit failures occur, the focus almost always turns to the audit file — missed procedures, weak evidence, or poor judgment. But what if audit failures are actually driven by something more fundamental?

In this episode, we examine whether audit failures are caused by resource constraints within the engagement team. From insufficient technical expertise and lack of industry knowledge to unrealistic time budgets and staffing pressures, we unpack how these resource constraints can undermine audit quality before the audit even begins.

We also explore how audit failures often reflect deeper issues in firm-level quality management, leadership decisions, and commercial pressures.

If you think audit failures are simply technical breakdowns, this episode will challenge that assumption.

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com

When a company collapses shortly after a clean audit opinion, the same question always comes up: where were the auditors? But audit failure rarely starts in the audit file.

In this episode of Financial Reporting Conversations, part of the Why Audits Go Wrong series, we walk through the 7-step audit failure timeline, showing how audit failure develops from weak governance, management pressure, and flawed financial reporting long before the audit begins. We unpack how audit risk builds inside the entity, how it flows into the audit process, and why critical risks are often missed.

If you think audit failure is just about audit procedures, this episode will challenge that assumption and show how audit failure really unfolds.

Financial Reporting Conversations is brought to you by Basford Consulting helping professionals go beyond compliance and get financial reporting right.

For technical insights, training, and resources that make the unknowns in financial reporting known, visit basfordconsulting.com

🔗 Connect with us:
LinkedIn: Wayne Basford & Judith Leung
YouTube: @BasfordConsulting
Website: basfordconsulting.com