STATEMENT OF CASH FLOW AND CREATIVE ACCOUNTING

Abstract

Creative financial reporting practices are of great concern in every developed country. The harmonization of International accounting standards has been considered as a way of improving quality of financial information. Given that information on cash flow is much less subjective than income, the elaboration and presentation of a cash flow as part of the annual financial statements of a company is usually considered a helpful tool to prevent accountancy manipulation. In this paper we discuss this belief, because the conciliation between earnings and operational cash flow must be analyzed in two stages: one for the difference between generated funds and earnings and another for the funds and operational cash flow. In this study it is empirically highlighted that the consequences of the analysis of both items are substantially different. Thus, a comparison between earnings and operational cash flow is not enough to detect creative reporting practices.