If Europe’s finance directors and accountants have one message for their US peers, it is that switching accounting standards is a more momentous and far-reaching change than they probably realise.

On Wednesday the US Securities and Exchange Commission laid out its provisional timetable for US companies to switch from US GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards. Providing certain conditions are met by 2011, the main date for the changeover will be 2014. A select group of companies will be allowed to adopt IFRS early with the aim of acting as guinea pigs for the rest of corporate America.