ABSTRACT
The chronologies prepared by Nobes & Parker for the UK and by Zeff for the USA provide general and comparative views of the development of company financial reporting and the ways in which accounting principles and standards have been established. The important legislative influences have been the succession of Companies Acts in the UK, and the Securities Act 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act 1934 in the USA. Since 1900, there has been a steady increase in the regulation of the financial statements and audits of all limited companies. During the inter-war years financial analysts began to emphasize the profit and loss account rather than the balance sheet. From 1908, public companies were distinguished from private companies and required to file an annual audited balance sheet. The Companies Act 1879, for example, reintroduced a compulsory annual audit for all banking companies registered thereafter as limited companies.
