This article deals with the types of sustainability accounting classified by various criteria. Environmental accounting is a type of accounting which considers not only financial capital but also other forms of capital: natural, human, social, etc. This article focuses on the types of sustainability accounting which concern the relationship between enterprises and natural capital. The author singles out certain methods of conservation and protection of the environment and particularly of natural capital using strong and weak sustainability approaches. The supporters of weak sustainability, who are generally environmental economists, are inspired by the neoclassical theory, while the strong sustainability advocates (or ecological economists) offer to introduce a systematic depreciation of natural capital.

The article considers the issues of the content and the development of the concept of fair value. This concept has acquired the modern shape during the last two decades. Currently it is used in the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) along with the concept of valuation at historical cost. The article examines the differences between these two concepts, as well as the models in which these concepts are applied directly in the financial reporting standards. The comparison is carried out according to eleven aspects: the possibility of using; its recognition in the statement of profit or loss/other comprehensive income of negative and positive changes in fair value; depreciation; the influence of fair value on the traditional indicators according to which the effectiveness of the company is assessed; risks inherent to the indicators obtained on the basis of the model; the use of valuation at fair value; permitting analytical capabilities; the complexity of determining the appraisal values. The article shows the advantages of the concept of fair value, its “coincidence” with the market economy and the role in its transformation and also the movement towards the new horizons. It is also noted in the article about the great importance of this concept for management accounting, and as a result, the potential possibility to use the principle of rationality when it is applied for the formation of financial reporting, i.e. it is noted that the advantages of the concept of fair value are greater compared to the costs of value determination of the fair value of the accounting entities. The concept of fair value allows to make the financial reporting more useful for the users, although it requires the socalled reinstallation of the analysis of financial condition and the results of the operations of the economic entities in accordance with the new indicators, methods and factors related to the assessment at fair value. The article proposes within the concept of fair value a combined model of fair value and substantiates the positive results of its application when reflecting the fixed assets in the financial statements of the economic entities. In conclusion, the article gives the following directions for further research regarding the concept of fair value, including the search for its new incarnations as well as the objects of its study.

The article considers the issues of structuring, accounting, analysing and monitoring the changes in intellectual capital (IC). The purpose of the research is to make the assessment of IC more objective and to determine its impact on economic entities performance. The paper is based on major theories of economic growth, modern trends of improving institutional infrastructure and corporate management, methodology of accounting, business analysis and audit. The authors provide a detailed analysis and rationale of IC definitions, offer some ways of IC classification and prove its importance for the objective assessment of company’s assets as well as for accounting, analysis and monitoring the basic IC components. They single out the most important trends in the developments of some IC components and demonstrate the peculiarities of their dynamics in different branches of economy. The article concentrates on controversial issues concerning the IC structure where definite recommendations are impossible. Instead the authors would recommend a contingency approach taking into accounts the special features of an enterprise’s activity, stages of a business cycle and the strategy chosen, i.e. the notion of IC should be differentiated in accordance with classification of economic entities into particular groups. The article specifically focuses on estimating the impact of some IC components on the performance (financial results) of a company. The article may be useful to academics and post graduate students in their choice of scientific research directions in the IC sphere and to practitioners to justify the ways of improving IC accounting, analysis and monitoring.

This article considers the information restrictions preventing users of financial reporting from getting reliable information about such a special resource of a company as goodwill. These restrictions result from lacking accuracy in defining basic notions, non-observance of legal forms and economic contents, subjective presentation and disclosure of the information about goodwill in financial statements. The analysis of these restrictions makes the authors admit that the fundamental contradiction exists in Russian concept of goodwill (business reputation) accounting. De jure the business reputation accounting is on the dynamic stage of its methodology development, providing for recognition of goodwill gained by a company as noncurrent asset, which is subject to straight line depreciation during its long useful life, but de facto the goodwill acquired by companies trading nationally is not recognized on their financial statements, pushing Russian accounting practice back to the statistical phase of development. Thus overcoming of information restrictions under consideration is densely connected with resolving the named contradiction. The research of the key issues of goodwill accounting in the foreign accounting science permitted the authors to define the vector of business reputation accounting concepts development. The authors propose to extend the informative restrictions by reviewing methodology approaches to business reputation accounting and methodic instruments used for this purpose.

This paper presents the concept of the Due Diligence procedure as modern auditing and consulting services. Conducting the Due Diligence involves the investment research implementation. The results of this research are the identification of risks that can have influence on a proposed capital market transaction, and the design of risk management techniques. The authors note one important applied problem - currently there are no professional auditing standards and methodological recommendations in the Russian legislation which regulate the process of organization and conducting of the Due Diligence procedure that accompanies auditing services. The objectives of this article are to synthesize the results of earlier studies and to determine the key elements of the concept which is needed to develop the working techniques of conducting the Due Diligence in the Russian Federation. In this paper the tasks are determined as the presentation of an algorithm for risk assessment in the Due Diligence procedure, the proposal of the main provisions of standards or methodological recommendations for the Due Diligence services, the formation of the glossary of terms for the purposes of developing of the working techniques of the Due Diligence. The relevance of the topic is determined by the necessity of the innovative development of theoretical and methodological bases of auditing activities in the Russian Federation. The conditions for further improvement of professional practices should be made to provide high-level auditing and consulting services as well as other auditing services in order to meet present day’s information needs of capital owners, who have to make decisions on investing in constantly changing and highly risky economic environment.

The article describes the author’s method of strategic calculation in the case of a certain medical industry enterprise and introduces a model of accounting and analytical support for strategic cost management by life-cycle stages using a process approach and taking into account a risk mechanism. This method makes it possible to generate the strategic cost of a product for the whole market cycle (lifecycle) and perform its comprehensive strategic analysis. The authors propose a form of cost strategic reporting, i.e. strategic cost estimate. To model strategic calculation its mathematical interpretation is provided. The strategic method of calculation is integrated with the balanced scorecard of the enterprise, which results in developing of an integrated system of strategic cost management at all stages of the product life cycle and business processes. To manage risk in strategic cost management the authors developed and applied an empirical scale of risk in costing.

The purpose of the current research is to work out the tools for the diagnostics and the formation of a management team as the subject of organization development within the developed by the authors complicated cyclical technique of adjusting the condition of the external environment to the potential of the controlled object, the elements of the controlled subject and the life cycle stages of the organization. The following analytical methods are used in the research: points and marks method, expert method, target method, commission and conference method, business games, comparison method, test questions, questionnaire, suggestion box, method of active sociological tested analysis and control. The authors demonstrate and justify the necessity of expertise, knowledge and skills for the management team, which in turn should correspond to such types as “enthusiasts” (infancy), “achievers” (growth), “defenders” (maturity), “bureaucrats” (decline) at different life cycle stages of the organization. The tools suggested by the authors are intended to be used at large industrial enterprises. The results obtained by the authors can be taken as the basis for further both theoretical and applied research in the field of analysis of management system of modern economic entities.

The Italian Board of Statutory Auditors has always been our peculiarity in the company’s control system. The Board has recently lived a profound upheaval in its collegial essence as a legislature body has introduced the figure of the sole statutory auditor for the limited liability companies (the Italian acronym is S.r.l.). The Italian attempt to abolish the Board of Statutory Auditors has partially succeeded, thanks to the introduction of a monocratic auditing body, but, first of all, because of the reduction of the entities which must have the monitoring body according to the law [1]. The Italian legislator has adapted the system to the system of controls accepted by the rest of the world not by enhancing the value of a role that requires great skill and involves huge responsibility to protect the stakeholders. There is also no doubt that there is the value of collegiality, compared to that of the sole statutory auditor; a set of professionals is vastly more effective in overseeing the legality in all facets of the business complexity, in correcting the mistakes of directors and in opposing corporate claims of shareholders.

The article generalizes and systematizes the views of the auditing of information security of the economic subjects. As a result of this research, the author summarized the contemporary condition of the specified subject areas of the auditing and outlined his views regarding the possibility of its application in the condition of permanent influence of the internal environment and the external surroundings on the economic entities, discovered its significant advantages for the system management of this entity. In the article the author outlines the main organizational stages of the processes of information security auditing within the auditing of the business as a modern concept of auditing in general. The features of each of the above mentioned stages as well as the recommendations for their implementation are discovered in the article. The result of the proposed by the author industry approach to the information security auditing is a comprehensive model of the auditing cycle within the auditing of the business which in turn allows to carry out the research of this subject area, which serves as the basis for the preparation of the information for making best and optimal management decisions.

The recent crisis in Russia’s economy has resulted in noticeably decreased demand and increased competition. Under these conditions Russian companies were forced to pay closer attention to generation of management accounting information, the quality of which largely determines the effectiveness of their decisions. In its turn, improvement of the quality of information calls for modifying the standard methods or using the new methods of processing information such as “Activity-based costing” (ABC method). It should be noted that most articles describe the implementation of the ABC method by industrial enterprises, and only some papers focus on application of this method in trade. However, Western scientists consider the ABC method to be equally applicable to production and trade. Hence it becomes relevant to seek ways of implementing the ABC method in trade, taking into account its peculiarities, and what is more - to find the possibilities of integrating this method with the trade accounting data, which is the purpose of writing this article.

The article considers both theoretical and practical problems of ensuring internal quality control in auditing organizations, which are nowadays widely disputed. The author analyzes a number of issues raised in the scientific literature and discusses the practical problems of quality control which are contained in the reports of the external supervisors of internal quality control inspections in auditing organizations - self- regulating organizations of auditors and the Federal Treasury of the Russian Federation. The author also specifies the principles and procedures within the system of internal quality control in accordance with auditing standards applicable in the Russian Federation and also formulates the problems that arise in practice when following these guidelines. The article touches upon the necessity of development of internal auditing standards of auditing organizations, as well as the features of the quality control in large and small auditing firms.