Examining the need to improve finance agricultural enterprises

Anelia Lyubenova

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to determine the condition of financial and accounting information systems in agricultural farms in Bulgaria. The information review and analysis in the area reveals that several research efforts have been made after 2000 with regard to the analyzed problem. In 2001 and 2002, two empirical sociological studies have been conducted in comparatively large-size enterprises from food and drink industry and agricultural production, but they lack detailed information for the analyzed issues. In a 2003 counting survey of the agricultural farms certain information can be found that addresses in part the issues in question. The established distribution of agricultural farms by the type of their accounting systems reveals that on a national level 95,8% of the agricultural producers do not have formal accounting systems and only 3,3% produce reports for their costs and incomes, 0,3% keep singleentry accounting systems and 0,5% keep a double-entry accounting systems. The major problems, connected with the financial management of agricultural farms in Bulgaria emerge from the lack of information systems and technologies in this filed both on a macro- and micro-levels. This formulation of the problem is used to indicate the tasks of the research that need to be solved: - determining the organizational structure of financial management for agricultural farms; - information provision of the financial and accounting decisions in agricultural farms; - methods and means for processing the financial and accounting information; - condition of the information processes and the financial systems of agricultural farms. A research plan for the survey is developed. The following issues have been determined. – sources, methods, and research tools for information gathering; sampling; contact methods; Information is gathered from two districts – Ruse and Targovishte. The results from the survey have been analyzed. The main conclusions are as follows: - Most of the agricultural farms suffer from lack of financials and qualified personnel to work with computer technologies which slow significantly their spread in the agricultural sector; - The agricultural producers have insufficient knowledge and skills for the contemporary information systems and technologies and they tend to use older and cheaper hardware and software as compared to the enterprises from the other economic sectors – industry and services; - as a future perspective more agricultural producers will use external financial accounting services.

Keywords: accounting; agricultural farms; finance; information services; information systems and technologies; research

Date published: 2018-01-29