Last week I wrote in this blog entry about how the world's six biggest accounting firms are now calling for changes that include replacing quarterly financial statements with real-time Internet-based reports, relaxing auditor liability and subjecting all public companies to forensic audits on a random basis.

At the time, I raised the question whether auditors were trying to sneak through changes that would reduce their accountability.

Now more criticism is starting to roll in.




CFO.com describes it as a "Utopian fantasy" and "naive".

"The beancounters are right that few investors or analysts use financial reports as anything more than a rear-view mirror these days. They would prefer forward-looking information including "soft" data on customer relationships, staffing levels and product development.

"But whether such information can be standardised enough to be computer-readable for comparison on company websites is questionable. So is the likely effect on share-price volatility of quasi real-time data: would it make some investors even more short-termist in their outlook? And how would the market cope with the inevitable revisions?"

On the question of dodging liability, the journal is spot on when it suggests that the ghost of Arthur Andersen is still lurking in the background.

"In such an environment, it is no doubt galling that the reporting exercise that firms and their auditors are expected to go through is increasingly seen as meaningless and irrelevant."

The entire exercise raises a number of important questions, says Motley Fool:

"Are the firms posturing to absolve themselves from ferreting out every malfeasance? If so, is that due to a practical evaluation of the state of business practices? After all, with an ever-increasing array of sophisticated financial instruments, accounting no longer involves simply counting the number of widgets in one's inventory. Is there something really broken with routine auditing functions which may occasionally allow malfeasance to pass undetected? Who should bear the cost of policing the current complex capital markets? Who is to blame if things go wrong?"

Plenty to think about there, and we don't yet know the answers.