User Guide

Converting IAS 1 financial statements to IFRS 18 presentation and disclosures — for preparers, reviewers, client signatories and organization administrators. Applies to both evaluation (demo) and production use; the workflow is identical.

1. Quick start (evaluators)

On the Dashboard, click “Try with sample data”. This seeds a complete, reconciling two-period project (FY2027 with a restated FY2026 comparative) into your own workspace and opens the statements. From there, explore the C3 transition note (Notes), the ★ Impact Assessment deck, and the exports — nothing to upload, and the sample is isolated to your organization.

2. Signing in & your account

• Your administrator creates your account and gives you a temporary password. Sign in at app.arivainc.com, then change it under Account → Change password. Changing your password signs out every session started before the change; the browser you changed it in stays signed in.
• Forgot your password? An organization admin can reset it (you'll receive a new one-time password). A reset signs the account out everywhere.
• Client users must replace the temporary password with one of their own before they can sign a report off — and again after any admin reset (section 16).
• After repeated failed sign-ins the account is temporarily throttled (~15 minutes) — this is intentional protection.

3. Organization administration (admins only)

Everything in Ariva Align belongs to your organization — users, entities, projects, and the audit trail are isolated to it. Under Organization admin:

Roles

4. Entities, projects & the guided workflow

Create an entity (the reporting company) once, then a project per reporting package (e.g. “FY2027”). The entity's main business activity flags (provides financing / invests in assets) drive IFRS 18 classification — you confirm these during import.

Every project page carries a workflow stepper across the top — Create project → Add data → Map accounts → Reconcile to report → Review & sign-off → Export — with completed steps ticked, the current step highlighted, and a Next: line telling you the single next action. Map accounts is the trial-balance step: in a project converted from an imported report the lines are already classified, so that step reports “The imported report's lines are already classified” and asks nothing of you. A brand-new project opens with one question — “Start here — what do you have?” — routing you to the right path:

• An annual report (PDF/Word) → Path A below.
• A trial balance (CSV) → Path B below.
• Both (recommended) → import the report first, then upload the trial balance and reconcile — the app learns your mapping for future years (section 8). The imported report stays the basis of the statements; the trial balance is the cross-check (see below).

Which population the statements are built from

A project can hold two populations of lines: the imported report (Path A — classified to IFRS 18 lines when the report was imported) and an uploaded trial balance (Path B — raw GL accounts you classify). Only one of them can be the report — counting both would double every figure — so the project says which one it is using, in a banner on the project overview and on GL Mapping:

• An imported report is the basis by default, and no GL mapping is required: its lines were classified when the report was imported. GL Mapping lists them for inspection and asks nothing of you.
• A trial balance added to such a project is for reconciliation — it cross-checks the converted figures against the ledger (section 8). It does not replace the report's figures, it is not presented, and you are not asked to map its accounts. The Reconcile to report page is where the ledger is used: it sets each IFRS 18 line's ledger total against the report and lists the ledger's own accounts that are not yet assigned to a line.
• Converting a general ledger instead? Press Use the trial balance instead in the banner. The confirmation states what changes: the statements are rebuilt from the GL accounts, GL mapping becomes required (and submit-for-review stays closed until every account is mapped), and any approval or client sign-off is withdrawn, as with every change to what the report presents. Use the imported report instead switches back, equally in one click. Nothing is deleted either way.

The overview lists the trial balance loaded in the project with its GL-account count, and offers Remove the trial balance for a file loaded by mistake — a duplicate, last year's ledger, or the demo sample. Uploading a trial balance replaces any trial balance already uploaded for the period — a different file just as much as a second copy of the same ledger — so upload one file holding every account rather than one file per statement. Either way the app asks you to confirm first, naming the file and how many accounts go with it, because both take those accounts and any mapping saved on them away and clear the statements already built, which must then be rebuilt from what remains. Neither action touches the imported report's own lines — re-import the report to change those.

5. Decisions, plan, readiness & reconciliation evidence (governance)

Three pages in the project navigation keep the implementation governed and visibly on track (a fourth, Reconciliation evidence, is described below):

• Decisions — the accounting-policy decision register, pre-seeded with the standard IFRS 18 judgements (main business activities, interest classification, dividends/FX/derivatives, cash equivalents, expense presentation, subtotals & MPMs, aggregation, transition). For each: record the decision, the rationale, and supporting evidence (a memo or working-paper reference). A reviewer approves each decision — never its own preparer (four-eyes); editing an approved decision reopens it. The register belongs to the entity, so it carries into every future period, and it prints in the audit pack. Reviewers can attach comments to any judgement; resolving a comment records who resolved it.
• Plan — a lightweight implementation checklist seeded with the standard stages (decisions, data, mapping, comparative, MPMs, disclosures, review, export). Assign an owner and due date per stage and progress each from To do to Done; add project-specific tasks freely. This is coordination only — whether the report itself is ready is measured automatically on the Readiness page.
• Readiness — one verdict: ready or not. Checks data completeness, mapping, the printed-totals tie-out, reconciliation, statements, validation, MPM completeness and judgement approvals; every red or amber item has a Fix → button that lands on the page that corrects it. The row Converted figures agree with the source report (Converted figures reconcile when no figures were captured from a document) links to the Reconciliation evidence page (below); it warns but never blocks. Once the report is approved, the verdict also says whether it is awaiting the client's sign-off or signed off by the client. A Changes since last review table lists only the events that changed report content since the last approval or submission — the reviewer reads this instead of re-inspecting everything.

Every working screen also states its period scope plainly — e.g. “Working population: FY2025 current period — 39 GL lines. FY2024 is comparative only.” The comparative appears in the statements' second column, never in this period's counts.

Reconciliation evidence

Reconciliation evidence (in the project navigation under Readiness, and linked from the Readiness page and the overview's review card) is a read-only page for every role, the client included. It sets the converted report against the document it came from:

• The verdict — a badge reading Agrees with the source document, Differences found or Not fully checked (Converted figures agree with each other when no printed figure was captured), the source document's name, the counts across all five layers, the ledger cross-check in one line, and the published tolerance.
• Figures printed in the source document — the census: of the figures captured from the document, how many agree, differ, could not be checked, or are not compared by design, plus any the extraction returned but could not record.
• The five layers — 1 · Line coverage, 2 · Printed subtotals, 3 · Cross-statement ties, 4 · Accounting identities, 5 · Ledger cross-check. Each check shows the required or printed figure, the converted figure, the difference, the tolerance and the evidence, with differences listed first.
• Layer 5 · Ledger cross-check — the trial balance you uploaded for the period set against the imported report, one row per IFRS 18 line: the report's figure for the line, the total of the GL accounts assigned to it, the difference and the same tolerance the other layers publish. The working ↳ Reconcile to report screen allows a wider rounding difference before it calls a line tied, so a line can tie there and differ here; the page publishes both allowances and says so on any line in that position. Below it, a census of the ledger: every GL account of the current period is either assigned to a line or counted as not yet assigned, and the two always add up to the accounts loaded — no account drops out of the count. An unassigned account leaves a line NOT CHECKED, never wrong: while any account is still unassigned, a line the ledger has not reached is reported as not checked with the number outstanding, not as a difference. Once every account is assigned, a line the report presents that the ledger does not reach — or accounts assigned to a line the report does not present — is reported as a difference. With no trial balance uploaded the layer is present and explicitly not applicable (“the converted report is not cross-checked against a ledger”) — never a tie, and it adds nothing to the counts of checks that agree. Assign the accounts on ↳ Reconcile to report (section 8); this page is the read-only record of the same comparison. It is arithmetic agreement only: it does not confirm that an account is assigned to the right line, and it is not an audit.
• Figure coverage of the document text — every number found in the document's text, broken down by section: matched on the statement pages, matched from the MD&A, notes or front matter, non-financial, possible contradictions (information for the reviewer to check, not findings) and unexplained figures (the reviewer's worklist).

A list shown in part always says so (“Showing 50 of N”, with Show all).

6. Path A — from an existing annual report (recommended)

1. Open Import Statements and upload the annual report (PDF or Word). Scanned/image-only PDFs are supported — the pages are read directly.
2. Extraction takes up to a minute. AI reads the report: it transcribes each statement line with its printed caption and classifies it into the IFRS 18 chart, and captures the statement of changes in equity (current year) and the printed subtotals and totals as evidence. The platform then computes every subtotal itself and compares it with those printed figures. Both the current and prior-year columns are captured; the currency is auto-detected (editable). AI can misread a figure — the completeness summary below and the Reconciliation evidence page are where you catch it.
3. Answer the classification questions (main business activity — pre-selected from the detected industry).
4. Review the Import completeness summary: the file (with its fingerprint), currency, extraction method, lines extracted, periods detected, narrative captured — and the report’s own printed totals (Revenue, Profit, Total assets, Total equity), captured separately as the check that the extracted lines add up to what the report prints. If no printed totals could be read, a prominent warning tells you before you continue. If an amber panel says the figures don’t tie to the printed totals, correct the flagged lines in the grid — the tie-out re-runs live about a second after any edit, and clears when the figures tie again.
5. Click Generate IFRS 18 report. Both periods are converted; you land on the statements.

7. Path B — from a trial balance

This is the path for converting a general ledger. If you imported a report, that report is the basis and none of the mapping below is required — see which population the statements are built from.

1. On the project overview, upload a CSV with headers gl_code, gl_name, account_type, amount, currency (or press Load sample trial balance (demo data) — sample figures that ship with the app, not your ledger. They are labelled demo data in the project overview's list of loaded trial balances, where they can also be removed again; the button is not offered in a project that already holds an imported report).
2. Run Auto-map: deterministic rules classify most lines with confidence scores and explanations; AI-assist proposes mappings for anything no rule matches. Every action reports what it did (e.g. “Auto-mapped 37 of 39 lines — 2 still need attention”).
3. Review in GL Mapping — every mapping is editable, and a Nature tag feeds the expenses-by-nature disclosure. The Rule column states in plain words who classified each line — an automatic rule, the entity's learned mapping, an AI suggestion, or a named preparer — so provenance is visible without opening anything.
4. GL Mapping opens on a “Needs attention” view showing only the lines requiring judgement — unmapped, low-confidence, or operating expenses missing a nature tag — with a live count; switch to All lines any time. The Reconcile page similarly leads with the buckets that don’t tie.
5. Build from Statements → Rebuild from mappings.

8. Reconcile to the report & learn the mapping

The strongest check of a trial-balance mapping is against your own audited report. If you imported a report (Path A) and uploaded the matching trial balance (Path B), the report's printed totals become the answer key. Adding the trial balance changes nothing about what is presented — the imported report remains the basis (above) unless you switch it deliberately:

1. Open ↳ Reconcile to report. Every IFRS 18 line shows Report vs Trial balance vs Difference, marked tied or off.
2. Fix any “off” lines — assign unmapped accounts right on the page, or correct mappings in GL Mapping — until the banner turns green: “✓ Every bucket ties to the report. The mapping agrees with the audited figures — learn it to reuse on future years.”
3. Click Learn this mapping for the entity. The confirmation reports how many GL accounts were learned — this saved mapping is the entity's reusable asset.

9. Roll forward to the next period

When a period is done, Roll forward to next period (on the project overview) creates next year's project in one click:

• this period's figures become the new project's comparatives (IFRS 18's two-period presentation comes for free);
• the learned mapping carries over — upload the new year's trial balance and known accounts auto-map;
• MPM definitions and narrative report sections carry forward as drafts;
• a Year-over-year changes card appears on the new project: new accounts, accounts no longer present, reclassified accounts, the largest movements, and MPMs added/removed — the reviewer's checklist.

10. Statements, drill-down & exports

The statements page shows the income statement with the two new mandatory subtotals (Operating profit; Profit before financing and income taxes), comprehensive income, the balance sheet, and cash flow — with the restated comparative alongside when loaded.

In IFRS 18 presentation order. Every subtotal is presented where IFRS 18 puts it, not collected at the foot of the statement: the operating category, then Operating profit, then investing, then Profit before financing and income taxes, then financing, then Profit before tax, then income taxes, then Profit for the period. The balance sheet totals each section beneath that section (total non-current assets under the non-current assets), and comprehensive income opens with profit for the period and ends with total comprehensive income. The statements page, the Excel/Word/PDF exports and the board deck present the same ordered statement — one engine decides the order, so no surface can read differently from another.

Your report’s own line captions are on the face of the statement. On a project built from an uploaded report, the report’s own printed captions are presented, indented, with the IFRS 18 line they add up to — eight printed cost-of-sales lines stay eight lines, under a Cost of sales total — so the converted statement reads like your document, not a generic template. Where an IFRS 18 line came from a single printed line, that line’s own caption is used for it. Where a surface cannot fit a very long breakdown, it is shortened and says “Showing N of M” — a shortened list is never a silent one.

Attribution and earnings per share. Where your report presents them, profit attributable to owners of the parent and to non-controlling interests, and basic and diluted earnings per share, close the income statement; comprehensive income carries its own attribution rows. These are presented and nothing more: they never enter a line total, a subtotal, the balance-sheet identity, the reconciliation of the converted figures or the trial-balance population, and a per-share amount is shown as a per-share amount, never as money. If both attribution rows are present and do not add up to profit for the period (or to total comprehensive income), validation flags the difference and names the amount — nothing is silently adjusted.

Drill-down provenance: click any line marked with a ▶ to see the exact GL accounts behind the figure — code, name, mapping rule, amount, and their sum (which ties to the statement figure by construction). The auditor's first question, answered in-app.

11. Narrative report sections

A full annual report carries narrative beyond the statements — the directors'/strategic report, chairman's statement, governance, principal risks, shareholder information. Manage these under Report sections: each section has a title, free text, and a placement (front = before the statements; back = after the notes). They render in the compiled Word/PDF in filing order and carry forward on roll-forward as drafts.

12. MPMs — suggested and defined

An MPM is a measure your entity actually uses in public communications. The MPMs page suggests candidates in that spirit:

• Detected in your own report — measures found in your imported MD&A, each with the quote as evidence. These are your strongest candidates.
• Common in your industry — a checklist only. IFRS 18 does not require any of them; add one only if you publish it.

Click Add to accept (then complete any “enter amount” items and the tax/NCI effect of each reconciling item — validation reminds you), or define measures from scratch. Not MPMs: free cash flow, net debt, per-unit metrics and ratios — they aren't income/expense subtotals.

13. Equity, notes, MD&A, validation

• Changes in Equity — enter movements per component; the closing balance is cross-checked against the balance sheet, and the statement renders in the compiled Word/PDF.
• Notes — generated first-adoption disclosures: basis of presentation, classification, expenses by nature, MPMs, EPS, cash-flow classification, and the IFRS 18.C3 line-by-line transition reconciliation; your existing accounting policies are carried over verbatim. Items needing judgement are marked [Management to confirm] — resolve them before publishing.
• MD&A — on a project built from an uploaded report, the report's own MD&A is carried over. When the platform locates the MD&A section in the document's text, it is the document's own words and is marked Carried over verbatim from … — DRAFT, review required; otherwise, and always for a scanned PDF, it is the AI's transcription, which can paraphrase or leave passages out, and is marked Carried over from … as the AI's transcription (not verbatim) — DRAFT, review required — compare it with the document. When the app has no record of which of the two it is — an MD&A carried over before this was recorded, or the project's saved MD&A text (an upload's capture or last year's text) carried in from the Import MD&A page, edited or not — it reads Carried over from … — DRAFT, review required. Text you paste on that page yourself reads Carried over verbatim from text pasted on the Import MD&A page. Sections that use terms whose meaning changed under IFRS 18 (e.g. “operating profit”, “EBIT”) are flagged for your review; nothing is substituted. Generate MD&A writes an AI draft built from the reported figures — on a carried-over MD&A the button reads Regenerate with AI and asks you to confirm the replacement first. Every paragraph is editable; check each figure and statement before use. On a rolled-forward project, last year's narrative becomes the scaffold: figures update with real period-on-period variances, but the draft does not explain why something moved — it inserts [DRIVER NEEDED: …] placeholders where only management can explain, and a flag counts them until they're resolved. A driver workbench on the page helps close each one: the account-level facts of what moved (from your own trial balances) and last year's narrative per section, ready to copy and adapt. Outstanding drivers also appear on the Readiness page as a warning until completed.
• Validation — one pass covering integrity and the IFRS 18 presentation requirements the platform models (the mandatory subtotals, material “other” lines): both balance sheets balance (current and comparative), the comparative income statement reconciles, comprehensive income ties (profit + OCI), the cash-flow statement ties (including the FX effect), plus mapping and disclosure flags. Aim for zero errors; treat warnings as a to-do list.

14. Impact assessment & the board deck

★ Impact Assessment is the executive view: upload a full report and it shows what changes under IFRS 18 and what doesn't (profit, equity, net assets are unchanged), the new subtotals, key reclassifications, and the reconciliation to the filing — with a one-click PowerPoint board deck. The deck is a draft for your team to review before it reaches the board: until the client signs the report off, every slide is marked not for distribution.

15. Interim (IAS 34) reports

For quarterly reporting — the first IFRS 18 statements most calendar-year entities publish in 2027 will be the Q1 interim report. The Interim Report tab marks the project as interim, and the comparative is read on the IAS 34 basis: the same quarter one year earlier (not the immediately preceding quarter). Notes switch to condensed/IAS 34 wording with the IFRS 18.C4 first-time disclosures, and exports are captioned accordingly.

16. Review & sign-off

1. The preparer clicks Submit for review on the project overview.
2. A different user with the reviewer role (or above) clicks Approve (sign off) — the platform enforces four-eyes: the submitter cannot approve their own report. Send back to draft returns it to the preparer.
3. The report now reads approved — awaiting client sign-off. It is not final yet: the client owns its financial statements, so a user with the client role must sign it off — even when every reconciliation check agrees.
4. The client user opens the project overview, clicks Sign off for the client…, reads the confirmation, optionally adds a note to be recorded with the sign-off, and clicks Confirm the client sign-off. The report reads signed off by the client, and the review card shows ✓ Draft → ✓ Submitted for review → ✓ Approved (four-eyes) → ✓ Signed off by the client, the steps after Draft each with a name and date.

A report that comes back. A report sent back by the reviewer, and one whose submission, approval or client sign-off a later change withdrew, are both “draft” again — and the project overview, the readiness page and audit pack section 8 each name what happened to it (sent back by the reviewer, or withdrawn because the report changed, with the date), never describing it as a report that was never submitted. A reason recorded with the rejection stays inside the firm; the client’s copy of the pack records that the rejection happened and when, never why. The pack’s sign-off block names the preparer, the reviewer and the client only while each of those steps still stands, so nothing in it reads as a commitment that has since been undone.

Each step (who, when) is recorded in the audit trail and appears in the audit pack. Only a client user assigned to the report's entity can sign — never the submitter or the approver, and only once the report is approved. The client must first replace its temporary password under Account → Change password; until then signing is refused (“Change your password before signing”), and an admin password reset sends it back to that step.

What the sign-off records. Under Recorded with the client sign-off the overview shows the source document, the reconciliation at signing (printed figures that agree, differ or were not checked, and any possible contradictions), the differences recorded, whether the client confirmed signing despite open items, and the client's note as typed, followed by the facts about the signing account as they stood at signing (who created it, who gave it the client role, and how its password had been set) and the caveat that they do not establish who operated it. The record also keeps the source document's SHA-256 fingerprint and fingerprints of the report as approved. Audit pack section 8 repeats the source document, the reconciliation at signing, the open-items confirmation and the note, and states facts about the signing account as recorded when the report was signed — who created it, who gave it the client role, and how its password had been set — adding that these facts do not establish who operated the account and that neither surface says whether the account has changed since (the facts are a snapshot taken at the signature, and an admin password reset afterwards does not alter the record). Ariva Align does not verify who uses a client account: your own admins create client accounts and can reset their passwords, which is why the record discloses these facts rather than claiming the client's identity.

17. Limits & troubleshooting

Support

Questions or onboarding help: contact Ariva.