User Defined Accounting Model

Abstract

At the heart of the free market system is the ability of the “Market” to determine what goods and services need to be produced and the appropriate allocation of resources to produce them in the most efficient and effective manner.  Many believe that the current financial reporting model has not facilitated the achievement of this goal as fully as possible.  A few ruling bodies have determined what information that is reported to investors and perhaps it is time to change this model and allow the market (individual users) to determine what financial information is most appropriate for investors, creditors and other external decision makers.  With the improvements in technology, society may be able to create a User Defined Accounting Model (UDAM) that will allow investors to make better informed decisions in a timelier manner.  The current financial reporting model, GAAP, requires companies to report information in one format which contains highly aggregated information that does not adequately address the predictive value of the information.  Some users may believe that market value or replacement cost may be a more useful measure of the company's future value than historical cost.  The current system aggregates the information at the firm level using primarily historical cost and then only forwards the results of this aggregation to users.  An improvement would be to allow users to determine which measure they would like to employ.  This paper proposes a model that allows users to access the primary measures instead of obtaining only aggregated, secondary data, and to compile financial statements in any format they desire.