The Finitist Accountant

This chapter presents the philosophical roots of finitism, financial reporting in finitist perspective, accounting for economic reality, and rule-governed accounting. Finitism helps people in classifying activities, items, and states of all kinds, whereas financial statements include an income statement, a statement of financial position, and a cash flow statement. According to the authors, corporate financial reporting is a major gap in sociological understandings of contemporary economic processes. Financial reporting directly affects the economic health of corporations and economic reality has been considered as an important part of it. The authors have also explained accruals-based current financial reporting, the valuation of a company’s assets, and several approaches for the detection of earnings management.