From the beginning of the new millennium, a number of accounting scandals involving audit firms have occurred. The accounting scandals involving well known Big Four audit firms have particularly been ...echoing in the media, which puts pressure on them and can make them more conservative in their judgements. One of the significant assumptions that auditors must assess is that of going concern of the audited entity. Existing studies from different countries and conducted for different time periods on whether the size of the auditor affects going concern uncertainty statement, do not show unique results, which implies that there are time and location specifics. Since, to the best of our knowledge, there is no such research for Croatia, the purpose of this article is to analyse on a sample of Croatian companies whether there is a significant difference between the propensity of Big Four and non-Big Four auditors to express going concern uncertainty. A sample of large financially troubled, but not bankrupt manufacturing companies, is used. The findings of our study show that there is no significant difference in stating going concern uncertainty between large international audit firms (Big Four) and smaller auditors.
Od početka novog tisućljeća dogodili su se brojni računovodstveni skandali koji uključuju revizorska društva. Računovodstveni skandali koji uključuju poznata revizorska društva Velike četvorke posebno odjekuju u medijima, što na njih vrši pritisak i može ih učiniti konzervativnijima u njihovim prosudbama. Jedna od značajnih pretpostavki koju revizori moraju ocijeniti jest ona o vremenskoj neograničenosti poslovanja poduzeća koje je predmet revizije. Studije o tome da li veličina revizora utječe na ocjenu vremenske neograničenosti poslovanja, iz različitih zemalja i provedene za različita vremenska razdoblja ne pokazuju jedinstvene rezultate, što implicira da postoje vremenske i lokacijske specifičnosti. Budući da, prema našim saznanjima, za Hrvatsku ne postoji takvo istraživanje, svrha ovog članka je analizirati na uzorku hrvatskih poduzeća postoji li značajna razlika između sklonosti revizora Velike četvorke i ostalih da izraze sumnju u vremenski neograničeno poslovanje. U istraživanju se koristi uzorak velikih proizvodnih poduzeća koja su u financijskim problemima, ali nisu u stečaju. Rezultati ovog istraživanja pokazuju da ne postoji značajna razlika u isticanju sumnje u vremenski neograničeno poslovanje između velikih međunarodnih revizorskih društava (Velika četvorka) i manjih revizora.
Cost management is a process that requires continuous improvement of managers' knowledge. There is economic theory of costs and revenues. However, in practice managers rely on accounting data in ...making business decisions. The main problem is that economists and accountants do not see the costs the same way. In this paper we explain the difference between the teachings of economic theory and its practical application in the accounting practices. We show how economic theory can be applied in practice and be a useful tool in the hands of managers. For the case study we use recent accounting data of a transport company.
Going concern (GC) is a basic assumption of accounting theory and practice. In the Republic of Croatia, the application for the GC assumption is within the framework of Croatian Financial Reporting ...Standards and International Financial Reporting Standards. In accordance with accounting standards, the applicability of the GC assumption in financial statements must be assessed by the company management, whereas, based on International Auditing Standard 570 (Revised), the auditor has to assess the truth and the objectivity of the management's evaluation. In scientific research GC reporting is considered to be a direct measure of audit quality and usually is defined as a likelihood of the auditor to express doubts about GC to financially distressed companies. This research provides a comprehensive overview of the published scientific and professional papers in which the audit quality is considered. Additionally, a primary research has been conducted on a sample of 102 certified auditors in the Republic of Croatia with the aim of examining the experience of auditors assessing GC and the financial and non-financial factors they depended on during the process. The results of the research carried out show that the auditors who have more than 10 years of work experience engage in assessing GC. Most respondents agreed that the assessment calls for a high level of the auditor's competence and that they are aware of potential consequences of the wrong decision. Regarding financial factors, they rely upon when assessing GC, they rated debt ratio, current ratio and the share of working capital in total assets as the top three factors for this assessment. Non-financial factors are overall considered less important. They only stressed the factor of bank account blockade. The results of this research have the potential to help auditors and management focus on the most relevant factors in a GC assessment.
CRYPTO ASSETS: THE EMERGING TRENDS IN CROATIA Kovsca, Vladimir; Vincek, Zrinka Lackovic; Kozjak, Suzana Keglevic
Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings,
03/2024
Conference Proceeding
Since the dot-com bubble, the potential of digitization has been evident, with technological advancements resolving issues surrounding financial transactions and documentation, thus globalizing ...investments. In today's digitally empowered era, where information is readily accessible, investments in various assets like stocks, digital currencies, property rights, copyrights, and art have gained popularity. At the same time, rapid technological advances continue to shape contemporary society and impact global economic processes. Digitization has led to the gradual integration of phenomena such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into various societal aspects. Although cryptocurrencies trading takes advantage of the unique blockchain technology, ensuring the digital security is imperative. The emergence of NFTs, distinguished by their unique and irreplicable nature compared to traditional cryptocurrencies, has significantly boosted the popularity of digital assets. In the Republic of Croatia, both corporate entities and individuals are increasingly engaging with these emerging crypto assets, prompting a closer examination of readiness for adoption.
The outbreak of the COVID - 19 pandemic affected many aspects of the human life, and an activity that has faced the greatest changes in the pandemic is education. Many higher education institutions ...already had some kind of online education planned in their syllabuses, but the new situation required a complete transformation to the teaching in the virtual environment. One of the challenges was to transfer practical and computational courses, such as financial or management accounting, into the online environment. The first aim of this paper is to present an overview how some European universities have adapted to the changed education environment, with an emphasis on accounting education. In parallel, we show the case of our faculty and the adjustment of our accounting teaching to the new situation.
ERP sustavi u malim poduzećima Varaždinske županije Keglević Kozjak, Suzana; Šestanj-Perić, Tanja; Peharda, Monika
Radovi Zavoda za znanstveni rad Varaždin,
12/2021, Volume:
32, Issue:
32
Journal Article, Paper
Peer reviewed
Open access
Cilj ovog rada bio je istražiti računovodstvene informacijske sustave u poslovanju malih
poduzeća te ispitati korištenje sveobuhvatnih rješenja kao što su Enterprise resource
planning (dalje: ERP) ...sustavi. Korištenje ERP sustava u Republici Hrvatskoj (dalje: RH)
znatno je ispod prosjeka EU-27 i daleko od postotka u kojem se ERP koristi u razvijenijim
zemljama EU, a koristi od kvalitetno implementiranog ERP sustava mogu biti značajne za
poduzeće. Te su nas činjenice potaknule na istraživanje korištenja ERP sustava u malim
poduzećima s područja Varaždinske županije. Istraživanje je pokazalo kako mala poduzeća
iz Varaždinske županije, koja je na visokom 4. mjestu po kriteriju razvijenosti županija
u RH, koriste ERP sustave u znatno većoj mjeri od prosjeka za sva poduzeća s više od 10
zaposlenih u RH, te da se u skladu s očekivanjima uglavnom radi o gotovim ERP rješenjima.
Većina ispitanika ulaže u taj segment zadovoljavajuće, ali ne planira buduće značajne
investicije. Budući da je na razini RH prema podacima Eurostata korištenje ERP sustava
znatno lošije nego u Varaždinskoj županiji, država bi ovdje mogla odigrati značajnu ulogu
kroz institucionalnu pomoć malim poduzećima u RH pri uvođenju ERP sustava, kao što je
slučaj u nekim tehnološki razvijenijim zemljama.
The aim of this paper was to investigate accounting information systems in small enterprises and to examine the use of comprehensive solutions such as Enterprise resource planning (hereinafter: ERP) ...systems. The use of ERPs in the Republic of Croatia is significantly below the EU-27 average and far from the percentage in which ERPs are used in more developed EU countries, and the benefits of a well-implemented ERP system can be significant for the company. These facts motivated us to conduct research on the use of ERPs in small businesses from Varaždin County. The research showed that small companies from Varaždin County, which is in the high 4th place according to the criteria of county development in the Republic of Croatia, use ERP systems to a much greater extent than the average for all companies with more than 10 employees in the Republic of Croatia. In line with our expectations, these are mostly ready-made ERP solutions. Most respondents invest in this segment satisfactorily, but do not plan significant future investments. Since, according to Eurostat data, the use of ERP systems at the national level is much worse than in Varaždin County, government could play a significant role through institutional assistance to small businesses in the Republic of Croatia in introducing ERP systems, as in some more technologically advanced countries.
One of the most relevant judgments the auditors express when auditing a company is whether this company can be considered as going concern. International auditing standards do not explicitly ...prescribe which analytical procedures should be used for that purpose but bankruptcy prediction models have proven useful according to relevant international literature. In this paper we investigate the auditor's assessment of going concern in order to assess the efficacy of Altman's and Zmijewski's prognostic models for predicting the going concern basis. The research is based on a sample of financially unstable companies in the Republic of Croatia that operated at loss in the observed period. The research sample was stratified into two groups, the first which consists of unstable companies assessed as going concern by the auditor (GC companies), whereas the other group is formed of unstable companies that the auditor assessed as those that would not operate as going concern (GCU companies). Using a one-way Mann - Whitney - Wilcoxon test, it was determined that Altman's and Zmijewski's score have statistically significantly higher (more favourable) value for the unstable companies which auditor assessed as going concern than for unstable companies which the auditor assessed as not being able to continue as going concern. We can conclude that statistical analysis performed on our sample of Croatian companies is in favour of the commonly accepted fact that bankruptcy models are appropriate classifiers of companies and can be used to assess going concern for financially unstable companies.
Financial ratios analysis is extensively used in practice as well as in empirical academic research. Moreover, it is common in most countries to issue statistical data about selected financial ratios ...by industries. Financial performance of a specific company based on financial ratios is very often assessed related to some benchmark. The mostly known benchmark measure for any financial ratio is industry average but even it could be calculated in two alternative ways. Beside industry averages, there are examples of different approaches to ratios statistics. In our paper we firstly investigate what measures are most often used as benchmarks, what are available alternatives and which are advantages and disadvantages of their use. We investigate that by means of hypothetical examples of current ratio. Then, we test different benchmark measures for current ratio on a sample of firms to analyze their effect on the performance rank of a single firm based on a specific benchmark measure. Finally, we give recommendations about the use of benchmark measures.