Similarities As with most comparisons, you will have similarities between the two standards. The income statement for Finnish and US GAAP are similar by separately reporting extraordinary items, interest, and taxes. Both standards have the same required statements in the audited financial statements, which are the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, and footnotes. As in accordance with the prior US GAAP goodwill policy, Finland requires goodwill to be amortized over five to twenty years. Fixed assets are depreciated over an estimated useful life using straight-line.
Inventory is valued at cost but no higher than net realizable value.
The Finnish footnotes provide an enormous amount of numerical information as compared to the US GAAP footnotes. Both standards detail the equity portion of the balance sheet. As stated in the history section, the Finnish accounting theory was to provide the distributable portion of the company. In generalizations, both standards have similarities but when looked in detail the differences are much more obvious than the similarities.