International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) SMP Committee Chairman Dr. Giancarlo Attolini and European Federation of Accountants and Auditors for SMEs President Bodo Richardt will share important insights relevant to the small and medium-sized practices in the South Asian region at a forum organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) and IFAC. 

The one-day forum on January 26, 2016 at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo will bring together regional and national accounting organisations, standard-setters and other relevant groups to discuss the challenges and unique opportunities facing small and medium-sized practices (SMPs) and small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) in the South Asian region. 

Dr. Attolini, an accountant and auditor in public practice, was appointed the Chair of the IFAC Small and Medium Practices (SMP) Committee in January 2012. He has been a member of the committee since January 2008 and served as Deputy Chair in 2010-2011. He is a founding partner of Attolini Spaggiari & Associati Studio Legale e Tributario, an accounting, tax and law firm in Reggio Emilia, Italy. 

Dr. Attolini is a member of the managing board of Organismo Italiano di Contabilità, the Italian accounting standard setter, and a member of the managing board of Organismo Italiano di Valutazione, the Italian valuation standard setter. He also served as a member of the Governance and Nominating Committee of European Financial Reporting Advisory Group from 2012 to 2014. 

Richardt has been an accountant and auditor for over 30 years and has worked in a variety of professional practices, ranging in size from the Big 4 to SMPs in Germany, France and the United States. He also worked on international and national standard setting boards including the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and the Institute of Public Auditors in Germany (IDW). 

He furthermore served the auditing and accounting profession as Bavarian President of the Wirtschaftsprüferkammer. He currently works as a consultant to SMEs and family-owned businesses, specializing in expert opinions on audit and accounting-related questions, business valuations, mediation and arbitration. Bodo Richardt has been serving as the President of the European Federation of Accountants and Auditors for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (EFAA) since 2014. 

The CA Sri Lanka – SAFA – IFAC SMP Forum is open for practitioners, representatives of professional accountancy organisations and those responsible for SMP/SME affairs in their organisation. 

The forum hopes to bring about better understanding on how the ISAs would be applied to the audits of SMEs, help build capacity to offer advisory services, be familiar with how to get the benefit of IFAC resources, overcome current challenges and seize future opportunities, grow the practices through the review, compilation and agreed upon procedures engagements, be up to date on the recent developments and learn how to be future ready.