ACCOUNTING - A NORMATIVE REPRESENTATION OF THE ECONOMIC REALITY?

An irony of our times may be that, although hundreds of satellites are monitoring the Earth's activity and that the use of informatics has been generalized, allowing the collection, accumulation, transmission and processing of an impressive volume of data – however, the accuracy of the economic-financial data, remains wedded to the demands of reporting of the results and the handling techniques. Despite the many sources of information, however, financial and accounting information, remains the main source reflecting the economic activity and also the results of those activities, as for their own managers, but also for the great diversity of third parties: customers, suppliers, employees, investors, banks, state institutions, etc. Although sometimes regarded as science or art, accountancy, has managed to make world’s biggest economist to have big faith in it. If they don’t understand it, they can easily imagine that accounting as science is very precise, similar to math. In reality, the accounting information is neither simple nor accurate and rarely meets all requirements of the various users