Financial reporting evolves, or does it?
Financial reporting is on the precipice of evolving, but there remain two vastly differing fields of thought on whether non-financial data should feature in company statements.
Peter Williams, chartered accountant and freelance writer, disputes the shift over to the inclusion of non-financial data, such as intellectual capital, environmental and social measures.
Williams says in this week’s Accountancy Age opinion page that ‘UK financial reporting seems to be struggling to avoid the abyss of meaninglessness in the early 2000s’.
However Timothy Copnell, director of corporate governance at KPMG, argues that ‘traditional financial statements form only part of the information set required by analysts and investors.
‘Increasingly, shareholder value is generated by intangible assets such as brands, know-how, intellectual property and, most importantly, people.’
To read the full debate go to here.