Accounting principles
Financial reporting is governed by a set of common principles. The Group applies the IFRS accounting standards approved within the EU and has a common Group chart of accounts. The Group’s financial management organization has drawn up guidelines for units, covering the content of financial reporting and the dates within which reporting must take place.
Strategic Business Units and country sales units make use of a number of different accounting and financial reporting systems. Group-level financial reporting is handled using one centrally-managed system. Strategic Business Units as well as country sales units are responsible for providing data for the Group’s reporting system. The Group-level financial management organization is responsible for maintaining the Group’s reporting system and for monitoring that appropriate and correct data is fed into the system.
Alternative performance measures used in Fiskars’ financial reporting
In accordance with the guidelines on alternative performance measures issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Fiskars Corporation has revised the terminology used in its financial reporting. Alternative Performance Measures (APM) are used to better reflect the operational business performance and to facilitate comparisons between financial periods. APMs should not be considered substitutes for measures of performance in accordance with the IFRS. As of Q1 2017, the term “adjustments” has been changed to the term “items affecting comparability (IAC)”, however the definition remains the same. As before, items affecting comparability are transactions that are not related to recurring business operations, such as restructuring costs, impairment charges, integration related costs, and the gain or loss from the sale of businesses. Correspondingly, “comparable EBITA” is calculated from comparable EBIT by adding back amortization.