BC7 In September 2001 the Board added to its agenda the performance reporting project (in March 2006 renamed the ‘financial statement presentation project’). The objective of the project was to enhance the usefulness of information presented in the income statement. The Board developed a possible new model for reporting income and expenses and conducted preliminary testing. Similarly, in the United States, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) added a project on performance reporting to its agenda in October 2001, developed its model and conducted preliminary testing. Constituents raised concerns about both models and about the fact that they were different.

BC8 In April 2004 the Board and the FASB decided to work on financial statement presentation as a joint project. They agreed that the project should address presentation and display not only in the income statement, but also in the other statements that, together with the income statement, would constitute a complete set of financial statements - the balance sheet, the statement of changes in equity, and the cash flow statement. The Board decided to approach the project in two phases. Phase A would address the statements that constitute a complete set of financial statements and the periods for which they are required to be presented. Phase B would be undertaken jointly with the FASB and would address more fundamental issues relating to presentation and display of information in the financial statements, including:

(a) consistent principles for aggregating information in each financial statement.

(b) the totals and subtotals that should be reported in each financial statement.