The integrity of information created through book entries

Abstract

We know more about the past than about the future. Accounting information and knowledge of the past come from the fact that the methods we use to arrive at beliefs about the past are generally more reliable than those generating predictions of the future. Because future uncertainty is linked to the arrow of time, its increase coincides with the flow of time from the past and present to the future. To facilitate and decrease uncertainty, accountants produce an ever‐increasing amount of future‐oriented information through the use of inter alia book entries. The integrity issues of this method of information creation are investigated in this article. It is found that the integrity of information may be affected when book entries are used.

Citation

Gouws, D.G. and van der Poll, H.M. (2004), "The integrity of information created through book entries", Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 101-117. https://doi.org/10.1108/10222529200400006