What is Creative accounting

Creative accounting (also termed as aggressive accounting or earnings management) distorts financial analysis of company accounts. Creative accounting is done by organisations to perhaps enhance balance  sheet  or  performance  by  either  exploiting  loopholes in  the  accounting  standards or deliberately  not  showing  certain  items.   Listed  companies  specifically have  added  pressures  for  the maintenance  and  increase  of  share prices; this  obviously  has  an  influence  on  the  valuation  of  company.   As  share  prices  are  stipulated  by  the  market,  information  fed  to  market  can  be manipulated to ensure this.

There has been a severe crackdown on misleading accounts specifically with the disasters such as Enron and WorldCom.   In  USA  there  are  now  huge  financial  penalties  and  even  jail  sentences  for directors deliberately misleading users the accounts. In UK directors are legally obliged to produce true and fair accounts.