The purpose of the course is the study of the annual financial statements of companies in its conceptual foundations, ie the purpose assigned by the legislator and that attributable by those who use it; the role it can take in the context of external corporate communication, especially in non-large businesses where there are no other tools at the service of information to be provided to third parties; the links between corporate and legal aspects, which allow us to move from the letter of the law to its application to real cases; the structure and form (through the balance sheet and the income statement) and the substantial contents that make it possible to display certain values ​​in the schedules; and finally of the uses that can be made of the document, first of all the balance sheet analysis by indices and flows. Ample space will then be given to the evaluation criteria of the balance sheet items, which find space in the explanatory note, from the point of view of the context in which they are inserted, verifying the link between items and amounts represented and the factual reality from which they derive, the result of discretion of the editor; but also from the point of view of the application of accounting standards, both national and international (where applicable); and finally from the point of view of taxation, which sets a series of evaluation criteria parallel to those dictated by the civil code but at the same time fundamental in the context of determining taxable income.
At the end of the course the student will have acquired:
1) Knowledge and understanding: acquire the basic notions on preparing the financial statements, understand the logic of the evaluation criteria
2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: knowing how to read a balance sheet, knowing how to identify the main categories of values ​​within the legal schemes.
3) Autonomy of judgment: knowing how to grasp certain signals (eg. Of crisis or alteration of the information provided) from the reading of the financial statements and the explanatory notes.
4) Learning skills: as this is an advanced course, various concepts relating to the role of the financial statements in the functioning of the company will be transmitted and relations with legal subjects such as commercial law, tax law and crisis law will be highlighted and insolvency