THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION IN EUROPE AND INTERNATIONALLY

Abstract

Along with updating the definition for accountant to meet current requirements in the evolving business environment, it’s a good time to look at what they key competence of the future professional entails.

The only current definition of “accountant” is the IFAC one that refers to the individual members of an IFAC member body. Looking into dictionaries will for sure result in a variety of definitions being found that firstly depend on the word used in a specific national language to translate the English com- mon noun “accountant”.

I am sure that many of these definitions in general refer to experts in the accounting field providing services to the private sector and to businesses, or working in businesses in accounting and administrative departments.

IFAC has recently started a project on the new definition of “accountant” that aims to update the old definition and refers to the key elements of the accounting profession, such as ethical behaviour and competence in order to serve the public interest.