Accounting, finance & control

Are financial reports based on pseudo-information?

By Philip Joos | April 21, 2015 | 1 min read

Philip Joos responds to the article "The Spirit of Accounting: Information versus Pseudo-Information" by Miller and Bahnson.

Image: © Nationale Beeldbank

Philip Joos responds to the argument that current financial reporting is based too much on assumptions and estimates rather than on observations of reality. Users of financial reports are therefore less able to gauge the success and risks of current and future operations, which reduces the usefulness of reports. Joos does not agree with the reasoning of these authors and states the importance of the context in which reporting takes place and knowledge of the interests of management versus external users of financial reports.

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Discussie: is accountancy gebaseerd op pseudo-informatie?, AccountantWeek (2015, in Dutch)
The Spirit of Accounting: Information versus Pseudo-Information, AccountingToday (2015, in Dutch)