Accounting Policies, Estimates & Errors: IAS 8 and IPSAS 3 in Practice
How an entity changes its numbers says more than the numbers themselves — IAS 8 and IPSAS 3 are where credibility is kept or lost.
Format
Classroom · Live Virtual
Upcoming sessions
Pick a session to applyADMISSIONS OPENThe programme
Every set of accounts eventually faces the three situations these standards govern: a policy that must change, an estimate that proves wrong, an error that is discovered. Each has different accounting — retrospective, prospective, restated — and confusing them is one of the most common findings auditors and oversight bodies raise. This programme works the distinctions until they are instinct: policy selection and the hierarchy when no standard applies; changes in estimate handled prospectively without disguising errors as estimates; prior-period errors corrected and disclosed properly. IAS 8 for corporate reporters and IPSAS 3 for public-sector entities, taught side by side with worked restatements.
What you will do
Who attends
Financial reporting and consolidation teams; public-sector accountants under IPSAS; auditors and audit committee support; finance staff preparing for oversight review.
Programme agenda
Built for the decisions no textbook prepares you for
I.Policies
- Selecting policies: the hierarchy when no standard speaks
- Voluntary changes: the reliability-and-relevance test applied
- Retrospective application and its impracticability escape, used honestly
II.Estimates
- Changes in estimate: prospective treatment and its boundaries
- Estimate or error? The distinction that decides the restatement
- Disclosure: the nature and amount, stated without burying
III.Errors
- Material prior-period errors: restatement mechanics, line by line
- The third balance sheet and comparative disclosures
- IPSAS 3 in the public sector: same logic, different accountability
Frequently asked
Do these programmes cover the Basel III final reforms and the ICAAP/ILAAP cycle?
Yes. The BIZENIUS banking curriculum is built around the Basel III endgame, ICAAP, ILAAP, IRRBB, IFRS 9 provisioning, stress testing and BCBS 239. Participants leave able to quantify the output floor on their own portfolios, write capital and liquidity documents that withstand supervisory review, and defend the numbers to their board.
Are the programmes adapted to regional supervisors such as SAMA, CBUAE or BCEAO?
Casework is built around supervisory documents rather than textbook theory, and faculty include former practitioners who have sat on both sides of an examination. Programmes address the questions SAMA, CBUAE, BCEAO and other home regulators actually put to the desk, and an in-house edition can be tailored to a single jurisdiction.
How do I secure a seat on a banking programme?
Apply for a seat or request the brochure from the programme page. A senior practitioner — not a sales team — responds within one business day, and the brochure arrives with that reply. BIZENIUS runs on enquiry: there is no online checkout.
Can a programme run in-house for our bank?
Every BIZENIUS programme can be delivered in-house, tailored to your balance sheet, your regulator and your data, in English or French. Many institutions start with an open cohort, then commission a private edition for the wider team.
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In their words
Knowledge transfer, emphasised throughout
“We worked with BIZENIUS for our Fresh Graduates Programme — they are simply amazing. Knowledge transfer and practical learning were emphasised throughout.”
Kuwait Investment Authority
From the Mandate Record
Mandate № 01 · Africa
The training programme that became national regulation
What the team mastered, the regulator wrote into the rulebook.
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The Capability Arc™
Fix it · Advisory
Advisory & Consultancy
A senior bench across risk, treasury and regulation.
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Take the brochure with you.
One request — the full agenda, the faculty and the next cohort dates, sent personally by the admissions team.







































