AN ACCOUNTING INSIGHT ON ROMANIAN SOCIAL ECONOMY ENTITIES SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

Social economy has a core importance in creating jobs and delivering goods and services for the disadvantages groups members. Even if no searching for profit, the Social Economy Entities (SEEs) have to maintain a financial stability allowing the continuously fulfilling their social mission. Sustainability is crucial in delivering to the disadvantaged. Romania financed during the years 2020 and 2021 around 2800 SEEs, but not very much is widely presented about their activity. Financial information is still publicly available, so the SEEs economic behaviour may be monitor and even predicted as a trend, using forensic accounting techniques: reviewing the existing public information on public and private sites, analysing the summary of financial statements, as it may be found on the Ministry of Finance online database, and interpreting the evidence so gathered. Within this paper, the sustainability of a sample consisting on 172 SEEs incorporated in Maramureș County, Romania is analysed using publicly available data, including by the use of the indicator of financial distress (Z- Altman score). It reveals that in actual conditions, about 80% of the sample population are in high risk of bankruptcy, only 6% of them being financial sustainable. This research may be useful for national deciders and local social economy facilitators in focusing the aid and support actions, and also for the SEEs initiators, in preparing the best ways of managing the assumed risks.

Keywords

• forensic accounting
• social economy
• efficiency
• sustainability