The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), recently launched the Sri Lanka Auditing Standard (SLAuS) for the Audits of Non-Specified Business Enterprises (Non-SBEs).
Chief Guest at the launch, Minister of Industry and Commerce, Rishad Bathiudeen said, “SMEs are considered an important part of Sri Lanka’s economy as it plays a vital role in the economic development and employment sector. We have a little over one million registered SMEs, with each employing three people. When we add the unregistered SMEs to the total, the importance of this sector in our annual GDP is clearly evident.”
He also urged the Institute, which is the sole authority in the country to promulgate accounting and auditing standards, to focus on including the country’s newest informal sub sector to Sri Lanka’s economy - social enterprises.
“This auditing standard has been a long felt need. Therefore, I urge the audit practice to extend its support to this important initiative and also laud CA Sri Lanka for taking various steps to develop the SMEs and SMPs in Sri Lanka,” the Minister said.
President CA Sri Lanka Jagath Perera said that this was the first time that a separate auditing standard was developed specifically for Non-SBEs. “There has been a need for this standard for several years, but we didn’t have sufficient mechanisms to justify how we can come up with a standard for this sector, as there were no other standards to match our requirement,” he said.
However, he said that the institute’s immediate Past President Lasantha Wickremasinghe who was the brainchild behind this initiative, had at a meeting found that Nordic countries were using a similar standard. “So, we used that as a guideline, but the new SLAuS was completely developed by a local technical team,” Perera said.
He also pointed out that in the world of auditing, there are lots of new standards coming in and the requirements of an audit is continuously expanding. “Even this standard is not going to be there forever, instead if and when there is a requirement, it will be upgraded while also addressing any lapses. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that all standard are revised and upgraded as per the requirement,” he said.
Speaking further, Perera emphasised that the accounting profession was going through some revolutionary changes, and therefore it was necessary for everyone to accept these changes as these changes are ultimately aimed at bettering the profession. “If we don’t change, the change will change us, therefore, we must change,” he said.
Current Chairman of the SMP Task Force of CA Sri Lanka, Lasantha Wickremasinghe said “We had some 20 sessions to deliberate, debate and come up with proposals. It was not an easy task, because we were doing something for the first time in our history. India tried their level best, Pakistan tried, but they are still struggling,” he said.