Senior accounting and finance professionals believe CLERP9 will deliver stronger financial reporting frameworks, but there are major concerns over the readiness of listed Australian companies to achieve compliance.

At a recent discussion hosted by Resources Global Professionals, three quarters of participants said that Australian listed companies were not ready to comply with CLERP9 by their given reported deadlines. But four out of five delegates believed that the enactment of CLERP9 would deliver the results the Federal Government and the regulatory sector wanted in terms of strengthening the financial reporting frameworks of listed firms.

International Financial Reporting Standards and concerns over the level of competencies of finance and accounting staff were seen as the biggest compliance issues by the group, with the modification and implementation of internal controls frameworks also rating a mention.

However, in contrast to widely voiced concerns over the quality of Sarbanes-Oxley Act software, the quality of IT systems in CLERP9 compliance was not rated as most important by any delegates.