With today, we have the enormous pleasure of officially giving voice to a great step that has been taken: starting from this year, SAPA Group will draft a complete company’s financial statement, which will be revised and certified by a leading financial and accounting firm: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
Before we answer the question in the title, a brief basic foreword.
Let’s say that – as always – the drafting of a company’s financial statement mainly involved two purposes:
- One is inherent to the fiscal aspect, that therefore pertains to the state and the nation where the company’s taxes are paid;
- And one is inherent to other purposes that have nothing to do with taxation.
To answer the question that we posed at the beginning, we will have to talk about the second reason why firms draft a company’s financial statement.
Obviously, SAPA has so far perfectly fulfilled its obligations arising from the regulations in the field of taxation of the country (depositing the certification of the income statement each year), but with today some progress has been made.
Or, better to say: a great progress has been made.
Let’s therefore examine in depth the second reason why a company’s financial statement is being drafted, direction in which progress has been made, and let’s start by reaffirming a concept:
SAPA is a “small” reality compared to the multinational giants with which we compete every day. Our best weapons for facing the competition are: agility, flexibility and a strong innovative spirit; but there is a FATHER principle that underlies all this, and that is the principle of transparency.
What does it mean that “one of our guiding principles is that of transparency”?
Transparency for whom?
We want to operate in transparency towards all our stakeholders, or towards anyone who has an interest in us. Towards these subjects we intend to act with the utmost clarity in every area of our competence.
In accounting matters, for example, some types of companies such as those listed on the stock exchange have the tax obligation not only to deposit the normal Financial Statements, with its the income statement and the statement of assets and liabilities, but to subsequently obtain the issue of a certification and the execution of an audit carried out by an accredited company.
The existence of this legislation has a very simple reason: the increase in income, in the volume of business and of the subjects involved increases the need to draw up a clear, transparent financial statement, which needs to be correct from every point of view.
But this is not our case.
SAPA is a company that neither by size nor by being listed on a stock exchange would have the obligation to draw up a complete and financial statement certified from an external company.
Making this step, however, had an important meaning for us, and it has the goal to bring more transparency and clarity towards all of our stakeholders.
In technical terms (for those who are more used to the accounting field) SAPA will produce each year a business management report, which will provide a faithful, balanced and comprehensive analysis of the company’s situation and performance, and of the management results, with particular emphasis on costs, revenues and investments.
The function of this report will mainly be to illustrate the overall situation and performance of the company, of the profitability, financial aspects and their influence on the formation of the company’s operating result, with reference to financial and assets situations, but also in relation to the forecasts related to future developments.
Certain of where we want to arrive, we have voluntarily decided to proceed in this way and to rely on an external company that provides for the controls and certification of our financial statement.
We have made this decision for a very specific reason and purpose: we care much about information transparency and it falls under our principles the will to be clear and communicate to the outside world without any kind of barriers.
We want to deliver security, transparency, clarity and solidity to anyone getting in contact with SAPA.
Who deals with SAPA cannot be in doubt, this is our goal and our greatest achievable result.
Transparency and security, these are the foundations for a healthy and solid company.
We are confident that this step has brought us even closer to where we want to get.
