Customized financial reporting, networked databases, and distributed file sharing

This paper analyzes the relation between customization and standardization in corporate financial reporting. It is argued that "customization around a standard report" (CASR) is a promising approach to financial reporting. Under this approach, the prevailing general purpose report serves as a benchmark, upholds information credibility, maintains information comparability and satisfies users' common information needs while the added customization meets users' different information and presentation requirements. To be effective, CASR should be undertaken jointly by the reporting company, the information intermediary and the end user.