Looking forward to the past Brendan McSweeney* Department of Accounting, Finance & Management, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK Abstract The paper considers whether ®nancial reports of the past can be based exclusively on measurements of past events or whether imagining future events is a necessary condition for such measurements. Using an idealised notion of a factual account of each event completed at the moment at which the event occurs, the analysis brackets out arguments about the incomplete or constructivist character of accounting representations. Notwithstanding the assumption of immacu- late perception, the paper demonstrates that accounts of the past require unexpungible assumptions about hypothetical future events. Retrospection requires anticipation. Diculties which commitment to anticipation-free ®nancial reporting generates is illustrated in a discussion of three discourses about accounting. A description of ®nancial reporting time which goes beyond a mere chronological characterisation is outlined. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. This paper considers the temporal properties of ®nancial reports which seek to `tell it as it was' (hereafter, ex post accounting). Speci®cally it establishes and explores an apparent paradox: whilst such reports seek to make true statements about the past, they cannot do so without antici- pating the future. The anticipations which it will be argued are necessary to describe the past should not be confused with the increasing inclu- sion of ex ante statements (e.g. pro®t forecasts) in documents such as `annual report and accounts'. These are attempts to predict (strongly or weakly) future conditions, for example, that next year's pro®ts will/might be a particular amount. 1 The class of anticipations considered in this paper are those which are necessary in order to make ex post statements about the past Ð such as that last year's pro®t was a particular amount. 2 The necessity of imagining the future in order to describe the past only appears paradoxical within a particular notion of time. This paper describes that idea of time, illustrates its in¯uence on various depictions of ®nancial reporting; demonstrates its insuciency for understanding the practice of ®nancial reporting; explores the regulatory ten- sions it generates; and provides an outline of a description of time which better characterises the task of ®nancial reporting. The idea that reports about past periods can be constructed without anticipating future events 0361-3682/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0361-3682(00)00046-X Accounting, Organizations and Society 25 (2000) 767±786 www.elsevier.com/locate/aos 2 Criticism of the adequacy of ex post corporate performance data has been voiced for many decades, and may have grown. But in parallel demands for measurements of past performances have also expanded (Power, 1994) and there is no evidence that national governments and other regulatory bodies plan to aban- don requirements for the periodic production of such data for multiple purposes including calculation of tax liability. 1 We are sometimes more certain about the future than the past. I am, for example, far more certain what my second-hand car's top speed will be when I drive it tomorrow than I am about how it was serviced by its previous owner