Features of Accounts Manipulations in Croatia

Investors and other users of financial statements seek for the information that is less likely to be affected by possibilities of financial number games. Accounts manipulations have become an issue of critical importance in today's capital markets and have been subject of many researches in several countries. However, their features in Croatia are still quite unexplored. In this paper a survey was made with auditors about most frequent areas of accounts manipulations in Croatia. The questionnaire was sent to 274 auditors, but only 54 of them filled it out correctly and return it back. After that, obtained results were compared with archival data extracted from auditor reports published in abbreviate prospects of listing public companies. Prospects of 238 companies listing on the Zagreb Stock Exchange and Varaždin Stock Exchange were reviewed, but only 136 or 57.14% of them provided all data necessary for the analysis. The evidence shows that accounting manipulations are very common praxis in Croatia, especially in area of depreciation policy, write-off of accounts receivable, asset impairments and long-term investments in financial instruments. Beside above mentioned items, auditors pointed out taxes, inventories, revenues, provisions and revalorization as very frequent areas of accounts manipulations