Are financial data from the top 100 EU companies available on time?

At the end of the accounting period all statutory audited business entities have to prepare and submit to the business register the annual report. Timeliness of financial reporting is considered to be part of the fundamental financial accounting qualities. However, the on-time submission of financial reports varies from country to country depending on various factors. Numerous studies show mixed results in regard to the factors, which influence timeliness of submission the annual reports. Some studies reveal that timeliness is directly related to the net profit earned by the company. The higher the profit, the more quickly one can expect the annual report to become publicly available. Companies are willing to report good news, prepare and submit their annual reports earlier than companies with bad news, and companies with financial losses release their annual reports the latest.

There is also an opinion that the economic decline has significantly influenced the timeliness of financial reporting making the situation worse and that the various measures implemented by different countries, like new government regulations, reporting systems etc., have made a positive impact on the on-time submission of annual reports. This opinion is supported by several studies about the impact of the financial crisis on conservatism and timeliness of earnings. Studies revealed that timeliness of earnings during the crisis period were low, but improved in the post-crisis period. The results also indicated that the introduction of the corporate governance measures to stabilize financial systems and improve regulation in countries had a positive impact on the conservatism and timeliness of earnings.

Living in an information society, timely data are vital for current creditors as well as for potential investors. From this perspective we surveyed whether reputed top 100 companies in selected EU countries are willing to publicly present their data. Data used within our analysis were from publicly presented information in Business Registers of the analyzed countries.

The authors suggest that future research should focus on investigation of the various causes of delay in submitting the reports.

This paper is one of the research outputs of the project IGA VŠE F3/2/2014.