Ind AS (Indian Accounting Standards)

Ind AS are India's accounting standards, converged with, though not identical to, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). They replaced the older Accounting Standards (AS) for companies that cross specified thresholds, phased in over several years by net worth and listing status, starting with the largest listed companies and gradually extending to smaller ones.

Applicability is mandatory, not optional, once a company crosses the relevant net worth threshold, and once a company starts applying Ind AS, it generally can't revert to the older Accounting Standards even if its net worth later falls. Companies below the applicability threshold continue using the older, comparatively simpler Accounting Standards, which is why two Indian companies of different sizes can report broadly similar transactions under genuinely different accounting frameworks.

The practical differences from the older standards show up most in areas like revenue recognition, financial instrument classification, lease accounting, and fair value measurement, all of which Ind AS treats with considerably more granularity than the AS framework did. For a practicing CA, keeping current with amendments to specific Ind AS standards is an ongoing requirement rather than a one-time learning exercise, since the standard-setting body revises individual standards most years. Recent, specific changes are tracked in [our roundup of key Ind AS updates](/blog/key-ind-as-updates-for-practicing-ca).