Venezuela's Highly Inflationary Economy Means Changes to Financial Statements
- by Theresa Hickman
This is a bit of an esoteric topic, but given the number of U.S. Companies (particularly oil companies) that operate and have subsidiaries in Venezuela, I think it is worthy of an honorable mention.
As you may or may not know, Venezuela's currency has had some changes over the years. In 2008, the Venezuelan Bolivar became the Bolivar Fuerte which dropped three zeros. So Bs.10,000 became Bs.F.10 and all their bills and coins were changed to reflect this. Then on Jan. 8, 2010, the government devalued the currency by 100%. The conversion from VEF to USD dropped from 2.15 to 4.30. (I always wanted to visit Venezuela; I guess it's time to book my vacation).
The SEC recently labeled Venezuela a highly inflationary economy. This means that US companies with investments/subsidiaries in Venezuela will need to apply highly inflationary accounting rules starting on Jan. 1, 2010. In addition, companies need to make more detailed disclosures when the Venezuelan reported balances differ from the actual US dollar denominated balances.
In a nut shell, if you formerly used translation, then starting Jan 1 of this year, you must now use remeasurement (or temporal method) to restate your Venezuelan entity's financial statements. See ASC topic 830, Foreign Currency Matters, which states that "[t]he financial statements of a foreign entity in a highly inflationary economy shall be remeasured as if the functional currency were the reporting currency."
For you non-accountants that I haven't bored and are still reading at this point, the reason why the SEC is doing this is to ensure financial statements are presented as accurately as possible. Hyperinflationary economies have volatile currencies, such as Venezuela (it's not every day a currency devalues 100% overnight) which can distort financial statements if the local currency (Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte) is used as the functional currency. To make financial statements more accurate, the reporting currency of the U.S. parent (US dollars) should be used as the functional currency.
FASB.orgactually has a nice write-up on this.
