Abstract: Since the implementation of IFRS, many changes in accounting standards have occured. Companies that follow IFRS must therefore always adapt and change its accountingprinciples according to changes made by IFRS. The latest change that companies must consider and adapt to in their financial accounting is the revised version of IAS 19 regarding pensions. This study aims to investigate if there is a relationship between financial accounting and management accounting due to changes made by IASB. More specifically the study investgates how the removal of the corridormethod and the introduction of IAS 19 as an external approach has affected its management accounting in three large corporations in Sweden.

The study tries to increase the understanding of the phenomenon known as the Big bath, on the question whether the market accepts Big bath accounting principle or not. Big bath is an accounting theory meaning that a company is likely to increase its impairment in a specific year. This could be as a reaction on a change in the leadership, a depreciation of the result or maybe an external decrease in demand. Through a quantitative survey of the market it is examining whether the companies themselves are inclined to use the procedure and if the stock market accepts it. The study concludes that Big bath similar procedures are a fairly common accounting practice and that the stock market does not seem to mind. .

In order to achieve comparability, which is one of the fundamental principles of accounting, companies should be consistent concerning the accounting policies they use. Only under certain circumstances changes in accounting policies are allowed, and when there is a change in accounting policies, it is important that the change is reported in a way that assures that the financial reports still achieve comparability. The purpose of this thesis is to establish which rules and recommendations about changes in accounting policies that exist in Swedish and German law and what their meaning is. Further, the purpose is to compare these rules and recommendations and discuss their differences and similarities, advantages and disadvantages. Since publicly traded European companies will be obliged to prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with International Accounting Standards (IAS) from 2005, I also describe the content of IAS 8 which deals with changes in accounting policies, and discuss what the consequences of this transition might be for Swedish and German publicly traded companies considering changes in accounting policies.

Audit is a common concept in Sweden. This occurs in many contexts and situations and may intend a wide spectrum of areas. It might consider environment audit, amateur audit, internal auditing, external audit etc. In the business community external audit and the associated external auditor is possibly, from the general public's side, the most recognized. The external audits purposes in big features are checking limited companies economic accounting along with the board and CEO: s management.

Recent studies show that manufacturing companies to a larger extent use historical cost accounting in their internal accounts, at the expense of calculated costs. The explanation behind this is claimed to be that firms are subject to careful scrutiny by the stock market. Consequently, top management stresses the need of evaluating all parts of the firm from External accounting. However, lower management levels express a general concern that the incentive to invest in machines will decrease. This master thesis aims to investigate whether or not there is an objective reason behind this concern.

A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation.

This thesis is based on an assignment from a unit within an international group manufacturing industrial products. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze and suggest ways to improve the cost accounting system in use at the unit. The main source of empirical data has been interviews with employees. The theoretical framework is based on a comparison between traditional/standard costing and activity-based costing (ABC). The cost accounting system in use is described in detail and classified as a traditional/standard cost accounting system.

Background: Many different parties in the society are affected by the financial information delivered by the companies. Therefore, different interests want their ideas to have an impact on the accountning standards. The construction of the accounting standards are illustrated as a pure political process, where lobbying and conflicts of interest are determining factors. Purpose: The purpose is to understand the underlying interests behind regulation of financial accounting in Sweden and how these interests are manifestated in the establishment of accounting standards. Method: The thesis is designed as a casestudy of the regulation process which induced the legislation of the Årsredovisningslagen 6 kap 1 § 3st.

Since January 1st 2005, public companies within the European Union shall prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with the international accounting standards. The adopted accounting standards are IASB?s IAS/IFRS completed with interpretations. Furthermore, member states may permit or require public companies to prepare their annual accounts according to IAS/IFRS. Sweden has not yet given companies the ability to use IAS/IFRS in the annual accounts due to taxation difficulties the strong relationship between accounting and taxation brings.

Since 1928 the Swedish accounting and taxation has been closely linked by law which today as the European Union works with its harmonisation of the European accounting systems brings up difficulties. The Union strives to integrate the countries different ways of accounting in order to make it easier to use and understand foreign information. The Swedish connection between accounting and taxation means that a harmonisation would change the whole system as its known today. The purpose with this study is to examine what the link between the two means and how a decoupling would affect Swedish accounting and auditing. We also want to examine how the Swedish taxation office, who currently uses the accounting as a ground for taxation, could guarantee the quality of the declaration without a proper underpinning. The study shows that a decoupling could lead to an increase in quality on swedish accounting and that the administration would become more difficult to handle. The risk of dividend of untaxed profits is not seen as a problem in this context.

Background: Small- and medium- sized businesses have during a long time had difficulties in raising long-term funding from external financiers, a reason for this is that these companies may have more information about their own business than the bank has. One way to reduce this problem is to hire a certified public auditor or a certified accounting consultant. Much has changed in recent years in the accounting profession. Mandatory audit has been abolished for small- and medium-sized businesses, which has led to major changes. Auditors are now not mandatory for these companies, which opens up the market for accounting consultant´s.

Since 1928 the Swedish accounting and taxation has been closely linked by law which today as the European Union works with its harmonisation of the European accounting systems brings up difficulties. The Union strives to integrate the countries different ways of accounting in order to make it easier to use and understand foreign information. The Swedish connection between accounting and taxation means that a harmonisation would change the whole system as its known today. The purpose with this study is to examine what the link between the two means and how a decoupling would affect Swedish accounting and auditing. We also want to examine how the Swedish taxation office, who currently uses the accounting as a ground for taxation, could guarantee the quality of the declaration without a proper underpinning. The study shows that a decoupling could lead to an increase in quality on swedish accounting and that the administration would become more difficult to handle. The risk of dividend of untaxed profits is not seen as a problem in this context.

This paper examines the customer relationships of a telecom operator and how their customer accounting is done. The aim is to use the framework developed by Lind & Strömsten (2006) to categorize customer relationships and see to what extent the framework predicts which type of customer accounting method is used for each customer relationship. A case study was made at Telenor Sverige AB where different customer relationships are identified and linked to the customer accounting techniques that are used for financial measurement of the customers. Findings include that all but one of the customer relationships described in the framework were recognized at Telenor and that most customer accounting techniques mentioned in the framework were in fact used and associated with different customer relationships. The results of the case study also highlight that some differences exist between the predictions of the framework and the observations at Telenor..

Since 1928 the Swedish accounting and taxation has been closely linked by law which today as the European Union works with its harmonisation of the European accounting systems brings up difficulties. The Union strives to integrate the countries different ways of accounting in order to make it easier to use and understand foreign information. The Swedish connection between accounting and taxation means that a harmonisation would change the whole system as its known today. The purpose with this study is to examine what the link between the two means and how a decoupling would affect Swedish accounting and auditing. We also want to examine how the Swedish taxation office, who currently uses the accounting as a ground for taxation, could guarantee the quality of the declaration without a proper underpinning. The study shows that a decoupling could lead to an increase in quality on swedish accounting and that the administration would become more difficult to handle. The risk of dividend of untaxed profits is not seen as a problem in this context.

Much attention has been directed to Charity Foundations and how they use the donations given to them. Donators and external organisations put pressure on and evaluate the performance of Charity Foundations. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how Charity Foundations handle the pressure from external parties through a qualitative case study of one Swedish Charity Foundation. The most important external factors have been identified and the accountability relationships between each party and the Charity Foundation have been examined. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews and from written sources.