The Future of Financial Reporting

The key message of this book is that the world is changing and that accounting, financial reporting and auditing must change in order to avoid the prospect that all three fail to meet the demands of society and thus become irrelevant. The book identifies four forces that will cause the future to be different from what it is now. Globalisation: Accountancy practice in the UK, and globally, will be increasingly determined by international bodies, such as those of the European Union and the International Accounting Standards Board; especially post the 2007/8 crisis.Society's demand for more ethical behaviour by business: The recent public outrage over the tax avoidance practices of multinationals has demonstrated that society will no longer tolerate unethical behaviour on the part of big business, audit firms and others.The environmental crisis: Accountants will no longer be able to argue that the impact of a business's activities on the environment or on a narrow view of the supply chain is not their concern. Technological change: In the future financial reporting will be largely effected through the Internet and real-time reporting. The present unwieldy and largely unread printed reports will become a relic of the past.Accountancy needs fundamental reform. Integrated reporting , whilst still keeping to some of its original ideals, seems to have failed in its current form. This book develops a novel but thoroughly practical form of financial reporting - hybrid accounting - which should enable accounting and financial reporting to meet the challenge of the future.