Looking forward to the past

The paper considers whether financial 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 immaculate perception, the paper demonstrates that accounts of the past require unexpungible assumptions about hypothetical future events. Retrospection requires anticipation. Difficulties which commitment to anticipation-free financial reporting generates is illustrated in a discussion of three discourses about accounting. A description of financial reporting time which goes beyond a mere chronological characterisation is outlined.