Implementing complex and yet sound and effective accounting information systems known as enterprise resource planning systems, is an enormous project for the firms that want to streamline their information flow and increase their value. As the effects of these systems on the performance of the entities are both financial and non-financial, their success is of crucial importance. This study is an exploratory factorial analysis to identify the factors of successful implementation of ERP systems in the medium and big companies in Albania. We use in depth surveys and interviews with firms that have implemented enterprise resource planning systems and include twenty initial variables in the survey. Later these variables are combined in three factors that have the biggest impact on the success rate of ERP implementation: the overall quality and end-user satisfaction with the ERP system; the cost-benefit ratio of the ERP and the support from the ERP provider and ERP implementing consultant. This study contributes not only theoretically to the empirical literature, but also practically because it helps businesses of the region that are considering implementing ERPs in the future to pay attention to the most critical factors of success with ERPs.

Recent technological changes have had a great impact on the accounting and financial environment all over the world. Albania has also been affected by these changes and developments such as the widespread use of interactive accounting information packages, financial web report­ing, and cloud computing. This paper tries to analyze the current situation of accounting and financial reporting in Albania and the impact that web reporting and cloud computing have had on the simplification of account­ing procedures. Several tools such as online reporting and Extensive Busi­ness Reporting language are presented and their impact on the use of the accounting systems and other financial reporting instruments in Albania is explained. This paper finds that cloud computing has been used extensively by the private companies offering accounting information systems in Alba­nia whereas Extensive Business Reporting language and the IFRS Taxonomy have not attained great recognition in Albania.

Information from financial statements and reported financial ratios have long been used to detect common phenomenon such as fraudulent financial statements, earnings management, and the relation between financial ratios and the level of tax risk of an entity. The focus of this study is to research the use of financial ratios that entities declare, in the detection of the magnitude of tax avoidance. In this paper we apply a binary logistic regression to detect which financial statement ratios differentiate between tax evading and non-tax evading entities. We analyse data from 183 tax audited Albanian entities for 2015 and 2016 accounting years and calculate several financial ratios to determine the level of tax risk based on the tax evasion magnitude found by the tax audit of these entities. We apply univariate and multivariate analysis and find several important ratios that can indicate quite accurately the high risk of tax audit of an economic entity. We suggest including these ratios as risk indicators or “red flags” in the selection procedures employed by the tax auditors. As tax reporting and financial reporting have similarities across countries of the region, our findings may be useful for other Southern Eastern European Countries as well.

This paper presents a theoretical discussion about the organization of the professions of accounting and auditing in Albania and the most recent changes that have encompassed the Albanian financial and accounting landscape after the implementation of new accounting standards, the increased requirements for electronic financial and tax reporting and the ongoing improvement and adaptation of the higher education curricula. All these factors present major challenges for the field practitioners in accounting and auditing. We try to identify which are the most prominent challenges faced by the practitioners today and identify that the ICT impact, ethical values and the globalization trend in accounting and financial reporting are some of the most emergent ones. These factors make the work of the practitioners more and more demanding and as it seems difficult to remain competitive in such a dynamic environment, we conclude with the recommendations that the curricula of the financial and accounting higher education should be adapted to include topics such as IAS/IFRS, ICT, Code of Ethics and that the professional accountancy and auditing organizations in Albania should provide ongoing training and qualification sessions on the same topics to the existing practitioners.

Albania implemented its first set of 14 National Accounting Standards (NAS), which were prepared in compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standards, in 2009. The 15th standard, specifically the Accounting Standard for financial reporting by micro-entities, was added to this set in 2011 and a 16th standard, relating to the reporting for non-profit enterprises, was added in 2015. In 2014, the National Accounting Council of Albania (NACA) performed a major revision of this existing framework of NAS. The focus of this paper is to analyze the current status, as well as the development of accounting and financial reporting in Albania for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). An international standard of financial reporting for SMEs was issued by the International Accounting Standards Board but was not fully endorsed by the European Community, nor by the NACA, who instead chose to revise their current NAS. In this study, we provide a general overview of the accounting regime and platforms currently applied in Albania, by focusing on the changes over the recent years. We also depict the main differences between the IFRS for SMEs and the NAS in Albania in treatment of several elements of the financial statements. JEL Classification Numbers: M41, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12955/cbup.v4.748