€(123) million or (€123) million?

Topics related to universal accounting principles and best practices, local GAAP, audit, laws and regulations affecting financial reporting, and other financial reporting topics.
This is also the appropriate forum for beginners to ask any questions, even if they pertain to IFRS.
Post Reply
pub_acco
Trusted Expert
Posts: 328
Joined: 19 Mar 2020, 16:40

€(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by pub_acco »

It might be a silly English question, but when denoting a negative amount with a currency symbol, which notation do you use: €(123) million or (€123) million?

In annual reports, companies generally seem to prefer €(123) million, but some companies use (€123) million. It doesn't seem to depend on the country of an entity because, for example, Amazon uses $(123) while Boing uses ($123), and Unilever mixes (€123) and €(123) in one report. Looking at Part B of the IFRS book, I see IFRS 17 IE and IAS 28 Supporting Material use CU(123) while IFRS 9 IE use (CU123). Excel formats negative numbers like (€123) by default.

I'm actually confused. Is there any canonical rule for this?
User avatar
Marek Muc
Site Admin
Posts: 3226
Joined: 15 Oct 2018, 17:21
Contact:

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by Marek Muc »

it's interesting that you spotted inconsistencies even within IFRS, I guess this proves that there's no canonical rule :)
pub_acco
Trusted Expert
Posts: 328
Joined: 19 Mar 2020, 16:40

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by pub_acco »

That's likely :lol:
JRSB
Trusted Expert
Posts: 1309
Joined: 01 Mar 2020, 01:10
Location: UK

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by JRSB »

Personally just the number in brackets because the number is negative rather than the currency...

I think it comes clearer if you say.... EPS this year was (0.4)p. ..... (0.4p) doesn't look right.

Just me.
User avatar
Marek Muc
Site Admin
Posts: 3226
Joined: 15 Oct 2018, 17:21
Contact:

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by Marek Muc »

Makes sense to me, similarly I would write €-123 rather than -€123
pub_acco
Trusted Expert
Posts: 328
Joined: 19 Mar 2020, 16:40

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by pub_acco »

I went through more annual reports and 10-Ks and found out that the overwhelming majority preferred €(123) and (1.23)% over (€123) and (1.23%), and a few companies mixed two styles, which might be caused by mistake. So I conclude it's safer to put only numbers in parentheses in a professional accounting context. Personally, €(123) is easier to read in the footnotes because (€123) isn't clearly distinguishable from parenthetical explanations.

That said, (€123) could be more popular in non-professional accounting contexts because Excel and many other non-professional applications print negative numbers as (€123) by default. This is likely because (€123) style is specified as the standard accounting negative number format in Unicode's CLDR http://cldr.unicode.org/, which is a kind of canonical standards for number formatter implementations.
User avatar
Marek Muc
Site Admin
Posts: 3226
Joined: 15 Oct 2018, 17:21
Contact:

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by Marek Muc »

wow, what an impressive analysis!
JRSB
Trusted Expert
Posts: 1309
Joined: 01 Mar 2020, 01:10
Location: UK

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by JRSB »

that analysis sounds right
pub_acco
Trusted Expert
Posts: 328
Joined: 19 Mar 2020, 16:40

Re: €(123) million or (€123) million?

Post by pub_acco »

;)
Post Reply