Origin, Evolution, Up-To Dateness of Accountancy Principles Meanings

The awareness of having a rich document source and the consequent necessity of having suitable regulations relevant to the operating and spreading procedures of complex and heterogeneous accounting information has drawn more and more the attention of enterprises and other categories over the different periods and historical contexts.1 The knowledge of the enterprise phenomenon, in its polyhedral conformation, becomes a problem of utmost importance for those who are connected with it. Such a knowledge has always been considered as propaedeutic to any enterprise decision. If we take into account the different evolution phases of accounting information application procedures, we understand how these have changed from typically quantitative information, obtained through periodical statement, mostly valid for internal purposes, into the current need of providing a reliable, neutral and checkable information, addressed towards external purposes of the enterprise. These are the two different forms of accounting information evolution in the course of time. The first form has resulted from the lack of precise and analytical rules, which have certainly favoured the revenues stabilisation policy at the expense of a faithful situation. The second form has resulted from the application of strict and uniform rules which have regulated the drawing up of periodical statements, their classification an valuation. The reference principles concerning the two opposite procedures of company’s information reproduction, as well as the relevant legal standards, have been strictly connected with the different patterns of company management which have spread out in the economical and environmental tissue. In fact, there is a close connection between the accounting information trend and the company management pattern. In other words, while in companies with a patronal organisation the need of having information able to favour the proper companies decisions has prevailed upon the need of information completeness, in those companies with a shareholding organisation, the need of transparency and the search for reliable information, has enabled the adoption of strict principles as well as uniform and conventional trends. Though the complexity of bookkeeping and statements is based upon logical and rational procedures, it has requested more and more competence and skill as regards the difficult company management problems. During the structural company evolution, different professional and legal interventions have been carried out by academic, vocational and legislative organisations, aiming at providing the accountant practitioner with the proper tools able to favour the real application needs in terms of acknowledgement, valuation and reproduction of enterprise events. Real ethical codes of self-regulation have been drawn up and put at the experts’ disposal in connection with the changing information needs. The present work has been divided into two chapters: in the first one the historical origin of accounting principles has been described; the second chapter deals with their conceiving.