Ind AS 118: New P&L Format and Key Changes

Financial reporting in India is heading toward a significant change in how companies present and explain financial performance. The proposed Ind AS 118 – Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements will replace Ind AS 1 and introduce a more structured approach to presenting the Statement of Profit and Loss. Rather than changing how profit is measured, the standard changes how income and expenses are classified, how operating performance is presented, and how management-defined performance measures are disclosed. For finance teams, this means the change is not limited to preparing a new P&L format. It can affect accounting policies, chart-of-accounts tagging, ERP reporting, management reporting, comparative information, disclosures and audit processes. The proposed effective date is 1 April 2027, with retrospective application. This makes preparation before the effective date particularly important because comparative-period information will also need to align with the new requirements.

What Is Ind AS 118?

Ind AS 118 is the proposed Indian Accounting Standard covering the presentation and disclosure of financial statements. It is based on IFRS 18 and is intended to improve the comparability, transparency and usefulness of financial performance information. Under the current Ind AS 1 framework, companies have greater flexibility in how income and expenses are presented. Ind AS 118 introduces a more structured architecture for the Statement of Profit and Loss.

The new framework classifies income and expenses into five mandatory categories:

1. Operating

2. Investing

3. Financing

4. Income taxes

5. Discontinued operations

The standard also introduces two important mandatory subtotals:

⇒  Operating profit or loss

⇒  Profit or loss before financing and income taxes

These subtotals are intended to provide users with a more consistent view of financial performance across companies.

The attached Ind AS 118 analysis illustrates how the same underlying economics can result in a differently structured P&L without changing the final profit for the year.

Why is the new P&L format under Ind AS 118 important?

One of the biggest changes under Ind AS 118 is the way the Statement of Profit and Loss is structured. Today, operating profit is not a universally defined mandatory subtotal under Ind AS. Companies may present operating profit differently, which can make comparisons between businesses more difficult. Ind AS 118 introduces defined categories and mandatory subtotals. A simplified structure can be represented as

Ind AS 1 vs Ind AS 118: What changes?

The fundamental economics of a business do not necessarily change because of Ind AS 118. What changes is the architecture used to present those economics.

Under the current framework, companies may present revenue, other income, operating costs, finance costs and other items within the existing P&L structure. Under Ind AS 118, income and expenses need to be classified into the prescribed categories.

For example, the brochure compares an illustrative P&L under Ind AS 1 with the proposed Ind AS 118 format. Although the profit for the year remains RS 110 crore in the example, the classification and visibility of operating, investing and financing performance change significantly. 

Ind AS 118 changes presentation and disclosure, not the underlying economics of the business.

ICAI similarly notes that the proposed standard focuses on presentation and disclosure and introduces defined subtotals without changing the measurement of financial performance.

The five mandatory categories under Ind AS 118

1. Operating

The operating category acts as the default or residual category.

It generally includes income and expenses related to the company's main business activities and items that do not belong in another specified category.

Typical examples include:

⇒  Revenue

⇒  Cost of sales

⇒  Employee costs

⇒  Depreciation and amortisation relating to operating assets

2. Investing

The investing category captures income and expenses from assets that generate returns individually and largely independently of the company's main business activities.

Examples can include:

⇒  Dividend income from investments

⇒  Interest income from investments

⇒  Share of profit from associates and joint ventures

3. Financing

The financing category covers income and expenses associated with liabilities raised to finance the entity and interest on liabilities.

Examples include:

⇒  Interest expense on borrowings

⇒  Interest on lease liabilities

⇒  Other financing-related expenses

4. Income taxes

Income tax income and expense recognised under the applicable income-tax standard are presented separately.

5. Discontinued operations

This category includes income and expenses associated with operations classified as discontinued or held for sale under the relevant requirements.

The brochure also highlights that classification can require detailed judgement. For example, lease depreciation may fall into operating while lease interest may fall into financing for an entity without a specified financing main business activity. Foreign-exchange differences generally follow the category of the underlying item.

Operating Expenses: By Nature, By Function or a Mixed Approach?

Another important change concerns how operating expenses are presented.

Ind AS 118 allows entities to present operating expenses based on:

⇒  Nature – such as employee benefits, depreciation and materials

⇒  Function – such as cost of sales, selling expenses and administrative expenses

⇒  Mixed presentation – different lines may use different bases

However, this is not simply a matter of choosing whichever format is convenient.

The presentation should provide the most useful structured summary of expenses, considering factors such as the company's internal reporting and the way management evaluates performance.

If expenses are presented by function, additional information on specified nature expenses will need to be disclosed in a note.

These include:

⇒  Depreciation

⇒  Amortisation

⇒  Employee benefits

⇒  Impairment losses

⇒  Inventory write-downs and reversals

This has an important technology implication.

The ERP and chart of accounts need to retain sufficient information to reproduce the required expense analysis without double counting.

 

Management-defined performance measures: A major disclosure change

One of the most significant changes under Ind AS 118 is the treatment of Management-Defined performance measures (MPMs).

Finance teams frequently use measures such as:

⇒  Adjusted EBITDA

⇒  Adjusted operating profit

⇒  Underlying earnings

⇒  Adjusted profit

These measures can help management communicate how it views the company's performance.

Under Ind AS 118, certain measures used in public communications may come within the MPM requirements. This means companies need to identify the measures they communicate publicly, establish clear definitions, prepare reconciliations, and establish appropriate governance.

The attached material describes the shift from public adjusted measures being outside the audited financial statements to their disclosure in a dedicated audited note, with reconciliation to the closest Ind AS 118-defined subtotal.

The practical question for CFOs is therefore:

What performance measures are we communicating to investors, lenders, analysts and other stakeholders today, and which of these could become MPMs?

That inventory should be created well before implementation.

Aggregation, Disaggregation and the Problem With “Other”

Ind AS 118 also strengthens the principles around how information is grouped and labelled.

The objective is to strike a balance.

Too much aggregation can hide information that matters to users.

Too much detail can make the primary financial statements difficult to understand.

The new approach requires companies to consider the characteristics of transactions and expenses when deciding how they should be grouped.

These characteristics may include:

⇒   Nature

⇒   Function

⇒   Measurement basis

⇒   Size

⇒   Geography

⇒   Regulatory environment

Material items with sufficiently different characteristics may need separate presentation or disclosure.

This also makes generic labels such as “Other expenses” more challenging to use appropriately.

The brochure recommends using informative labels and explaining the contents of material balances where necessary.

 

What happens to the cash flow statement?

The impact of Ind AS 118 extends beyond the P&L.

Under the new approach, the indirect method of preparing the cash flow statement starts from operating profit rather than profit before tax.

The change does not alter the amount of cash generated. Instead, it changes the reconciliation bridge. The attached material also highlights prescribed classification changes for certain cash flows, including interest paid, dividends paid, interest received and dividends received.

This means finance teams should not treat Ind AS 118 as a standalone P&L reporting project.

The P&L, cash flow statement, notes and comparative information need to be considered together.

What does Ind AS 118 mean for ERP and finance systems?

For many organizations, the biggest implementation challenge may not be the accounting policy itself.

It may be the data architecture behind financial reporting.

Finance teams need to determine whether their existing ERP and reporting systems can capture the information required to:

⇒  Classify income and expenses into the five categories

⇒  Support nature and function reporting

⇒   Track items across comparative periods

⇒   Identify and reconcile MPMs

⇒   Produce required nature-expense disclosures

⇒   Support cash flow reporting

⇒   Maintain an audit trail for classification decisions

The brochure specifically highlights the need for chart-of-accounts tagging that can produce the required nature-expense information and support retrospective restatement.

This makes Ind AS 118 not just an accounting-policy exercise, but also a finance systems and reporting transformation exercise.

Ind AS 118 transition: Why finance teams should start now

The proposed effective date is 1 April 2027, and the standard requires retrospective application.

That means companies cannot simply wait until the first reporting period under Ind AS 118 and then begin collecting the necessary information.

Comparative information needs to be prepared under the new framework.

The brochure specifically recommends beginning comparative-period data capture well before the effective date.

A practical implementation roadmap could include five stages:

1. Assess

Review the existing P&L, cash flow statement, disclosures and management reporting.

Identify gaps against Ind AS 118.

2. Map

Map every relevant income and expense line to the appropriate Ind AS 118 category.

Document judgement areas such as lease accounting, foreign exchange and unusual items.

3. Tag

Update the chart of accounts and ERP/reporting tags required to generate the new disclosures.

4. Govern

Create an inventory of MPMs and establish definitions, ownership, reconciliation processes and approval controls.

5. Restate and Test

Prepare comparative information, test the new reporting structure and conduct working sessions with finance teams, auditors and relevant governance bodies.

Ind AS 118 Readiness Checklist for CFOs and Finance Teams

Before implementation, finance leaders should ask:

⇒   Have we mapped every P&L line to the appropriate Ind AS 118 category?

⇒   Have we documented our classification policies?

⇒   Can our ERP support the required reporting structure?

⇒   Can we produce nature-expense information across functional expense lines?

⇒   Have we identified all management-defined performance measures?

⇒   Are MPM definitions and reconciliations governed?

⇒   Have we reviewed material “other” balances?

⇒   Can we reproduce comparative-period information?

⇒   Have we assessed the impact on the cash flow statement?

⇒   Have finance, audit, accounting and technology teams aligned on implementation responsibilities?

The attached material highlights these areas as key actions for finance teams before the transition.

What finance leaders should take away

Ind AS 118 is more than a new P&L template.

It introduces a more disciplined way of communicating financial performance by standardising categories, introducing mandatory subtotals, strengthening disclosures and bringing greater governance to management-defined performance measures.

For CFOs and finance teams, the key challenge is preparing the organisation before the reporting deadline. The most important steps are not waiting for the first financial statements under the new standard. They are mapping, documenting, tagging, governing and testing the data that will support those financial statements.

The proposed transition is retrospective, which makes comparative-period data particularly important. Organisations that begin the assessment early can identify accounting, reporting and system gaps while there is still time to address them.

Conclusion

The new P&L format under Ind AS 118 is ultimately about making financial performance easier to understand and compare.

But achieving that objective requires more than changing the layout of the Statement of Profit and Loss.

Finance teams need reliable classification rules, appropriate ERP tagging, controlled management performance measures, stronger disclosure processes and properly prepared comparative information.

With the proposed 2027 effective date approaching, the right time to assess readiness is now.

Ind AS 118 may change the way the numbers are presented. The preparation required to get those numbers ready starts much earlier.