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5Шутова И. С.
Ст. преподаватель кафедры бухгалтерского учета РГЭУ (РИНХ)
ПРОБЛЕМЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЯ БУХГАЛТЕРСКОЙ
ОТЧЕТНОСТИ
PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF REPORTING IMPROVEMENT ACCOUNTING REPORTS
Shutova I.S.
Senior Lecturer, Department of Accounting, RSUE
АННОТАЦИЯ
В статье рассматриваются роль и значение бухгалтерской отчетности на современном этапе развития экономики, характеризуются финансовая и управленческая отчетность, выявляются и обозначаются проблемы повышения полезности информации, раскрываемой в отчетности, определяются основные направления совершенствования элементов бухгалтерской отчетности в системе учетно-аналитического обеспечения управления.
ABSTRACT
The article discusses the role and importance of accounting reporting at the present stage of economic development, characterized financial and management reporting, identified and designated the problem of increasing the usefulness of the information disclosed in the financial reporting, determined the main directions of improvement of elements of accounting reporting in the system of registration-analytical maintenance of management.
Ключевые слова: финансовая отчетность, бухгалтерская отчетность, управленческая отчетность, перспективы совершенствования
Keywords: financial reporting, accounting reporting, management reporting prospects for improving.
The development of modern economy shows that management reporting takes a special place in the system of accounting information about the company activity. Management reporting unlike accounting, statistic and tax reporting, which are intended both for external and internal users, contains the information formed upon requests of internal users only.
In their turn, internal users of accounting information represented by management bodies of a company use reporting data for assessment of performance of the plan, analysis of the property and financial state of a company, planning and forecasting of its activity, substantiation of management decisions. Detailed and concrete data on the condition and results of the economic activity of a company necessary for internal users are given in management reporting and they are absent in accounting, statistic and tax reporting.
Accounting, tax and statistic reporting is prepared according to uniform rules specified by the Federal law No. 402-®3 dated 06.12.2011 (as revised on 28.12.2013) 'On accounting', Tax Code of the Russian Federation, resolutions, accounting and accounting reporting regulations, other regulatory acts.
Accounting (financial) reporting should give a reliable idea of the financial state of an economic entity as of the reporting date, financial result of its activity and cash flow in the accounting period, which is necessary for the users of this reporting to make economic decisions. Accounting (financial) reporting should be prepared on the basis of the data contained in accounting registers as well as on the basis of the information specified by federal and branch standards.
Management reporting cannot be formed as per uniform standards; therefore the process of its making is not regulated by legislative and regulatory acts. The composition and content of reporting indicators, form
and terms of their provision are determined by the company and depend on the type of its economic activity, business legal structure, strategy and tactics of management, level of proficiency of management personnel and other specific peculiarities of each economic entity.
Today reporting prepared for management personnel of a company is called 'segmental', 'internal' or management reporting. However, the term 'management reporting' seems to be more acceptable, as it accentuates the purpose of reporting which presents the information used by internal users for substantiation of management decisions.
The matter of management reporting is also determined by scientists in different ways, however, the existing divergences in the used terms and wordings are not fundamental, as the basis of all definitions is uniform approaches to the content and purpose of reporting. With the account of these approaches management reporting can be defined as a system of detailed and concrete information about property, capital, liabilities, profits and expenses of a company, economic processes and their results, internal and external factors influencing the achieved results which is necessary for management personnel for forecasting, planning, organization, control and regulation of the activity of an economic entity [2].
For management reporting to contain useful and comprehensive information about the activity of a company and to be a reliable information base for substantiation of management decisions, it shall satisfy a number of requirements: timeliness of reporting presentation, concreteness and availability of reporting information, objectivity and comparability of reporting data, economy (reporting preparation costs should not exceed the effect of its usage). Thereat, no atten-
tion is paid to the requirements of reliability, completeness, integrity, sequence of provision of information about the company activity, significance of its indicators.
Reliability of management reporting can be ensured if accounting information used for its preparation is formed in full accordance with the rules specified by legislative and regulatory acts on accounting.
The requirement of completeness of management reporting means that it should contain comprehensive data on availability and usage of labour, material and financial resources, on capital, liabilities, profits, costs and results of the company activity, on the influence of external and internal factors on the achieved results, which are useful for substantiation of management decisions.
The requirement of integrity lies in the fact that a company should include indicators of the activity of all branches, representative offices and other subdivisions (including those which were separated to different balances) into its management reporting.
For convenient use of management reporting data, the requirement of sequence of indicators provision from one accounting period to the other should be satisfied. The content of management reports and form of their presentation established by an economic entity can be revised only in case of change of the type of activity, organizational structure and management system, improvement of reporting, expansion and intensification of composition of management information.
The use of management reporting for assessment of the achieved results of the economic activity requires comparability of the accounting indicators given in it to the data of the plan, estimates (budgets), norms and standards, check points, to the indicators of previous accounting periods.
Comparability of accounting indicators of management reporting to the data of previous accounting periods is achieved, first of all, by means of invariability of the accounting policy of a company for a long period of time, by means of sequence of its application from one accounting period to the other. In case of change of the accounting policy the data of previous accounting periods and plans, budgets which are incomparable to the data of the accounting period are subject to corrections in accordance with the rules in effect in the accounting period. Every important correction of indicators should be disclosed in management reporting with the indication of causes for this correction. Thereat, value indicators of the volume of production and sales of goods (works, services) are given in management reporting in comparable prices.
Management reporting indicators are formed with the account of the requirement of significance. Significant indicators are indicators without the knowledge of which it is impossible to assess objectively the results of the company activity and to make effective management decisions. When determining the composition and content of management reporting it is important to assess correctly the significance of its indicators and to include all information useful for substantiation of management decisions into reporting but
at the same time not to overload accounting forms with minor, insignificant data.
It is known that when making accounting reports those indicators can be recognized as significant the specific weight of which makes not less than five percent in the sum total of the corresponding data. No quantitative criterion shall be used when determining the significance of management reporting indicators, it is necessary to take into consideration the character of indicators and their significance for substantiation of management decisions under particular circumstances of the economic activity of a company. For problem spheres of the company activity, which require increased attention due to high risks and problems in their state, the indicators with smaller specific weight in the final data are recognized as significant, they give the most complete and detailed data on the controlled objects in the reporting. It is possible to increase the level of significance of management reporting indicators and to limit their number in more successful and effective spheres of the company activity.
The requirement of timeliness of management reporting presentation results from the necessity to make operating management decisions as results of the analysis and evaluation of reporting indicators.
The main problems in preparation of management reporting are related to the absence of general recommendations on the formation of the system of accounting indicators and information base for their calculation; and it complicates the development of the internal regulation on management reporting of a company and making of software products for automation of the processes of its preparation. This gap cannot be explained by the individuality of the indicators given in the reporting. Even with the specificity of management reporting of each company numerous and separate accounting data can be classified according to the rules which are uniform for economic entities of all business legal structures and types of the economic activity. The indicators which characterize the following controlled objects may be singled out as separate groups:
company's resources (labour resources, non-current and current assets);
company's capital and reserves, its long-term and short-term liabilities;
economic processes of the company, its profits, costs and results of the current, investment and financial activity.
The list of indicators inside of each group is determined in the internal regulation on management reporting depending on peculiarities of the economic activity of the company.
Management reporting is formed as per data of management accounting, however, the process of its preparation is not considered as an integral and final stage of accounting process, the correlation of accounting indicators to accounting data is not traced. However, without the precise determination of data sources to receive each of the indicators of management reporting the process of its making will not be systematized, it will remain spontaneous, isolated not only from accounting of property, liabilities and eco-
nomic processes but also from the processes of development of plans, budgets, norms, standards, check points.
The whole complex of accounting, planned, financial and other information about the company activity is used when making an information base of management reporting.
Both initial data on the facts of economic activity (economic operations) registered in primary accounting documents at the stage of primary accounting and indicators of bookkeeping, statistic and operative technical accounting received as a result of systemati-zation and generalization of initial information in accordance with the tasks, requirements and methodology of each type of accounting act as the sources of accounting information.
If necessary, the information of statistic accounting useful for substantiation of management decisions (data on staff turnover, use of working hours, etc.) is included into management reporting.
An integral part of management reporting is the data of operative technical accounting used for operating management of economic processes and their results (data on daily equipment downtime and their causes, on fulfillment of planned schedules of repair or construction of objects, etc.).
The planned and regulatory information presented in management reporting is used as criteria for the assessment of plan performance, observance of norms and limits of resources consumption, standards of capacity utilization, and control over the activity results. The planned information presented in management reporting comprises indicators of the company activity specified in the operating, annual and long-term plans. Regulatory information contains the data of budgets of the company resources consumption, norms and limits of their consumption, standards of capacity utilization, and other data characterizing the set parameters of the company activity [1].
Marketing information as a part of management reporting characterizes the condition of goods markets, competition level, share of the market controlled by the company, development of prices for goods, works and services, etc.
Financial information includes the data on the development of stock market and foreign currency value rates, on the change of bank credit interest rates, etc.
Management reporting may also contain technical information about the state of equipment and its capacity, data of the personnel department on the level of proficiency of workers, continuity of employment, data of the security department on occupational accidents, their causes and other information useful for substantiation of management decisions.
Management reporting is internal reporting, i. e. reporting on conditions and results of the activity of structural subdivisions of a company, separate areas of its activity and activity results by regions.
Management reporting has the following distinctive features:
it is more detailed, for example, it contains information by separate types of goods, factories, accounting centers, etc., usually this information is not disclosed to third parties;
it is more scaled, for example it includes both future and past costs, profits and gain. Management reporting also characterizes potential effect of the decisions which have not been made yet, such as: possible investments, implementation of new products or increase of sales. It causes the additional classification of costs according to their relation to the change of volumes: fixed costs in comparison with proportional costs;
structure and content of management reporting depend more on special requirements to management decisions and communications in a peculiar company than on instructions on financial reporting.
The objective of management reporting preparation is the satisfaction of information needs of internal management by means of provision of value and natural indicators which make it possible to assess and control, forecast and plan the activity of structural subdivisions of a company (separate areas of its activity) and certain managers.
The objective of internal reporting preparation causes its recurrence and forms as well as the number of indicators. The precision and volume of the data depend on organizational technical and economic peculiarities of a company and concrete object of management accounting, on the management objective with regard to this accounting object. Due to this the development of internal reporting is the main task of a company. The content, forms, terms and obligations of reporting presentation as well as its users depend on the conditions of business in a certain company.
Internal reporting is not yet a result of management analysis which is the most important element of management accounting, it is a raw material for such analysis. But on the basis of it, it is possible to give the general assessment of activity results of responsibility centers, to understand the level of achievement of the set objectives and correctness of operating corrective decisions made.
Familiarizing company's staff with the data of management accounting improves relations of employees, forms employees' confidence in their state.
References
1. Bakaev A.S. Explanatory dictionary of accounting. Moscow: Accounting, 2006. - 170 p. - (Library of the journal 'Accounting').
2. Paliy V.F. Management accounting - a new reading of internal calculation / V.F. Paliy, V.V. Paliy // Accounting. - 2000. - No. 19. - pp. 58-62.
3. Khakhonova, N (ed.) The conception of formation of accounting analytical support of business entities management in Russia, CD-ROM, B&M Publishing, San Francisco, California, USA. 2014. - 149 p. - PQN 500
