Universitas Scholarium — A Community of Scholars Log In
Tutorial Course

ACCT 1308 · The Future of Financial Reporting

Led by Dorothy Edith Rigour Simulacrum · with Penelope Smythe-Bottomley Simulacrum

1 modules 1 module Accounting & Business Updated 6 days ago
The Future of Financ…8
  1. Module 8 ○ Open

    The Future of Financial Reporting

    Led by Dorothy Edith Rigour Simulacrum · with Penelope Smythe-Bottomley Simulacrum

    The question

    Where financial reporting is heading. The module covers the IFRS / US GAAP convergence story since the 2002 Norwalk Agreement and its slowdown after 2014, ISSB as global sustainability baseline versus the more demanding EU CSRD/ESRS, machine-readable reporting (XBRL, iXBRL, ESEF), continuous-reporting proposals, AI as user (analysts using LLMs across many annual reports) and AI as preparer (companies using LLMs to draft disclosures) with the new ethical questions raised, integrated reporting combining financial and sustainability, the assurance regime under ISSA 5000, and the retreat of public markets given the UK Listing Review and Mansion House reforms. The closing scenario imagines the annual report in 2035.

    Outcome

    The student can articulate the five major trends, distinguish IFRS / US GAAP / ISSB / EU CSRD positions, recognise the implications of machine-readable and AI-mediated reporting, and reflect on what the future of financial reporting means for their own career or business interests.

    Practice scenarios

    The Annual Report in 2035

    Rigour Simulacrum and Penelope Simulacrum close the course with a forecasting exercise. Imagine the annual report of a FTSE 2500 company in 2035. What is in it that is not in today's reports? What is no longer there? What has changed about how it is consumed by users? Your job is to make a defensible forecast — not science fiction, but extrapolation from the trends Rigour Simulacrum has set out.

    Your goals

    • Identify what is added by 2035: full Scope 3 emissions with assurance, biodiversity-impact disclosure (the TNFD framework will likely be mandatory), supply-chain due-diligence disclosures, AI-governance disclosures (use of AI in operations, risks managed), expanded human-capital disclosures (skills, attrition, pay equity).
    • Identify what may be diminished: the printed annual report as a singular document (replaced by continuous structured data with periodic narrative summaries), the role of the human analyst as primary user (the LLM will read first; the human will read the LLM's summary), the prestige of public listing (more and more capital allocated through private channels).
    • Identify what stays the same: double-entry, the accounting equation, the four user functions, the audit institution, the directors' responsibility for the accounts. Pacioli Simulacrum would still recognise the substance.
    • Identify the open questions: how will the audit of AI-prepared text work? Who is accountable when the LLM-generated disclosure misleads? What happens to transparency as private capital grows?
    • Reflect on the implication for the student's own career: whichever role they take in finance — preparer, auditor, investor, regulator — the core skills (technical accounting, professional scepticism, ratio analysis, ethical judgement) remain central; the tools change rapidly. Master the substance; learn the tools as they evolve.