Users Needs: A Premise For Corporate Reporting Change

The topic of corporate reporting is very actual being subject of preoccupation of the main international regulatory and professional organisms in the accounting area. Hence, our study targets a priority research area. Its main objective is to discuss the concept of user needs and to emphasize how the needs of users of corporate financial reports have developed in time and how these needs are the main factors influencing the actual changes in the framework of the corporate reporting. In the nowadays society of knowledge, characterized by the variety and growing needs of corporate reports users, the regulatory organism are trying to respond. During time the concept of user of corporate reporting, referring here at financial reporting has changed from the owner of the business, to the manager and nowadays to a larger category of users. From the seven categories of users identified in 1975 by the Accounting Standard Steering Committee (investors, creditors, employees, the group of business partners, the state authority and the public), the most important seem to be the ones representing the capital providers. Analysing the latest IASB and the IIRC conceptual framework we could observe that both have a decision usefulness objective. Therefore, their main objective is to guide companies to make available reports that will help capital providers in the decision process. IR is considered to be a further step in the corporate reporting, therefore, by analysing it conceptual framework we observed how the needs also of the other categories of users are to be accomplished by using this type of reports. Also IR comes as a continuation/response of IASB framework, which recognizes its limits in the first paragraphs, saying that the financial information supplied by the companies in accordance with the framework is not sufficient and that the users’ needs to consult also other pertinent materials. Thus, the IR is composed from financial and non- financial information, and argues that is not representing more reporting, but better.