Arguments from Mattessich to Macintosh, Shaerer, Thornyon, and Welker on Accounting Representation and Reality

Abstract

Accounting aims to reliably represent the financial reality of the entities. Etymologically the word "reality" comes from Latin and literally translates "thing", in direct relation to physical matter, which can be observed, studied, measured, controlled and transformed. This article presents, from a documentary review, an analysis of the reality in accounting representation based on the position of Matessich (2006) in his Layers-Onion model of Reality and Macintosh et al (2000) from the “simulacrum orders "By Baudrillard and his" hyperreality. " It is concluded that there are two perspectives on the reality in the accounting representation, the first one is based on a representation oriented towards the objectives or purposes pursued by the information and, the second one is a simulation of reality because it lacks real references.