Luis Pereira Rosa reaches up to the top shelf of the meeting room a cupboard and picks out a faded blue book. The tome – whose title translates as Portuguese Chart of Accounts – once gave listed companies explicit instructions on how to produce financial statements, says Mr Rosa, a partner at Auren, a Lisbon-based accountancy firm. “You must lay out the accounts in this way and provide these 48 additional notes,” he says, leafing through the musty pages. “It means you work between very straight boundaries.”

But this year those boundaries have been erased. Due to international financial reporting standards (IFRS), which are big on principles and low on prescription, he says: “You are not dealing with the same type of demands. It’s a different concept.”