Home  Journals  International Accounting  26(368) - 2015 July

Internal control and controlling: concept-based specifics

Received: 14 July 2015

Accepted: 16 July 2015

Available online: 25 August 2015

Subject Heading: Managerial accounting

JEL Classification: 

Pages: 2-12

Importance The variety of management and control strategies and the emergence of various terms like internal control, management accounting, and controlling necessitate the systematization of these concepts relative to one another.
     Objectives The objectives of the study are to review the nature of controlling, management accounting, and internal control from the scientific and practical viewpoint within a scholarly dispute, and to systematize approaches to their definition and understanding their similarities and differences.
     Methods We applied a method of comparison to analyze the concepts of internal control, management accounting, and controlling, and to consider their nature, objectives, functions, objects, and subjects.
     Results The study shows similarities and differences of the three categories, i.e. internal control, management accounting, and controlling. There is no consensus about the functions of controlling and management accounting yet. We conclude on the identity of management accounting and controlling as integrated systems of performance management, taking into account the understanding of the meaning of the management accounting category, which exists in Russia. We believe management accounting is not a concept of management; it is rather an accounting concept of the supporting function of internal control and management. In any case, internal control takes an independent position of the self-supporting management function.
     Conclusions and Relevance Management and control are primary in relation to planning and accounting; therefore, any technologies of management or control, which include controlling and management accounting as they are understood in Russia, can hardly be called the systems of internal control.

Keywords: internal control, controlling, management accounting, control system, risks

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