Guidance

Financial Statements and other accompanying documents

The directors of the company are responsible for ensuring that a complete set of financial statements for the company is prepared in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards and the provisions of the Companies Law.

The financial statements must include:

• Profit and loss account;
• Balance Sheet signed by at least two (2) directors;
• Notes;

and must be accompanied, depending on the circumstances, by:

• the company’s management report and depending on the circumstances a consolidated management report;
• the company’s auditors report;
• a non-financial report and depending on the circumstances a consolidated non-financial report;
• a report, and depending on the circumstances, a consolidated report for the payments towards governments.

The financial statements of the company are firstly approved by the board of directors and presented in the annual general meeting of the company for approval by the shareholders.

A company is exempted from the submission of financial statements if:

• It is in the year of its incorporation;
• it is in the year following the year of its incorporation and, it has already convened a general meeting during the year of its incorporation.

Consolidated Financial Statements

Every company that has subsidiaries must consolidate its financial statements with the financial statements of its subsidiaries in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards and, must present the consolidated ones.

The following are exempted from preparing consolidated financial statements:

• small and medium-sized groups unless an associated company is a public interest entity, or the preparation of their consolidated financial statements is governed by legislation other than the Companies Law;
• a company which only has subsidiary companies, provided that all of the subsidiary companies do not play a significant role, individually as well as collectively, in the presentation of the true and fair picture of the assets, the liabilities, the financial condition and the profits or losses of all the companies included in the consolidation;
• a holding company may not include the financial statements of a subsidiary company, if that subsidiary company is not significant enough to affect the true and fair picture of the assets, liabilities, financial condition and profits or losses, of the consolidated financial statements of the holding company. It should be noted, however, that the above exemption does not apply in the case where 2 or more of the subsidiary companies of a holding company collectively are significant enough to affect the true and fair picture of the assets liabilities, financial condition and profits or losses, of the consolidated financial statements of the holding company;
• groups of companies whose ultimate holding or holding companies publish consolidated financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards.

Excluded from the submission of management report, are companies of:

• small-sized
• medium-sized

Maintaining accounting books

The directors of the company are responsible for keeping proper books of account and records on the basis of which the company's financial statements are prepared.

These books of account and records must give a true and fair view of the company’s financial affairs and allow the determination of the financial position of the company, with reasonable accuracy, at any specific point in time. They must also include supporting documents (including contracts and invoices), which should reflect:

• all the amounts of money which are collected and spent by the company, as well as issues for which a relevant collection and expenditure is made;
• all the sales, purchases and transactions of the company; and
• all the assets and liabilities of the company.