After the Enron debacle, the IASB proposes to shift from the rules based approach to the principles based approach of setting standards so that professional judgment is used for the purposes of financial reporting and specific rules are done away with. This paper attempts to highlight the need for consistency amongst standards so that comparability across companies over a period of time is facilitated. This would also facilitate the trend analysis of the company’s financial health over a period of time. The paper also analyzes the potential costs and benefits of adopting the principles based approach in the terms of increase in relevance of the financial information to the situation of the company as all companies have unique and customized business model (benefit) while it would also lead to loss of consistency and standardization of accounting standards for comparability (costs).
The paper reviews the trends being implemented by the standard setting bodies that focus more on the exercise of professional judgment as financial reporting is a science that is ever evolving in nature. Framing rules for every specific transaction is not an easy task given the mammoth number of participants in the financial system and the peculiarity of transactions across different companies.
Correspondingly, all the standard setters namely FASB, IASB and German Accounting Board are biased towards principle based approach which gives rise to inconsistency in the application of the standards for the same transaction in different ways by different companies that hinder cross comparison amongst companies.
安然事件后，国际会计准则委员会提出的原则为基础的方法用于财务报告的目的和具体规则，使专业判断标准的制定完成了与转移的规则为基础的方法。本文试图强调有必要促进标准之间的一致性，所以过了一段时间，公司之间的可比性。过了一段时间，这也将有助于公司的财务状况的趋势分析。文中还分析了采用原则为基础的方法的条款的情况，该公司的财务信息的相关性增加，所有的公司都有独特的，个性化的商业模式（利益），而它也将导致的潜在成本和效益的会计准则的一致性和标准化，以作比较（成本）的损失。
本文回顾了更专注于专业判断行使财务报告是一门科学，是不断发展的性质，标准制定机构正在实施的发展趋势。取景每一个具体的交易规则是庞大的金融体系的参与者和交易的特殊性，在不同的公司并不是一件容易的事。
与此相对应的是，所有的标准制定者，即财务会计准则委员会，国际会计准则委员会和德国会计委员会是偏颇的以原则为基础的方法产生不一致的标准，在同一个事务由不同的公司以不同的方式阻碍企业之间的交叉比较中的应用。
