The constant modification of accounting concepts is a requirement of practice and theory. The reasons that drive this evolution are found in the speed at which decisions are made and that influence the ever-increasing changes in the environments that act on the wealth of companies. Neither the legal nor the closed property aspects inspire truly modern accounting. Neopatrimonialism is the new doctrinal current that, today, scientifically traces the destinies of this millenary knowledge and the Lopesist philosophy that inspires this new trend.
ENVIRONMENTAL ENVIRONMENT AND ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES
Currently, every social cell must adapt to the rapid changes in the market, new technologies, changes constants in the laws, in the financial and exchange policy, in short, to a series of changes that operate in many stuff.
Accounting, as a science of the wealth of that social cell, needs to keep up with these changes.
It is the exogenous environmental influences that modify the dynamics of the heritage resources, coming from the world outside the cell, but acting either directly or indirectly on it.
Such changes in states, of a more distant external nature, are influencing the way in which the company is managed, as they affect property resources.
Other influences, also environmental, coming from external elements, but closer, derived from the administration and personnel, being internal to the cell, are equally environmental influences, but endogenous.
It is important to study and analyze these internal and external environmental influences (endogenous and exogenous) because they are unequivocal forces that make the heritage move.
These influences are also those that determine the occurrence of efficiencies or inefficiencies, generating, as a result of heritage phenomena, a matter that is fundamental to science accounting.
Therefore, it is important to study the dynamics of the patrimonial environment, under such perspectives.
This constant movement is what gives rise to the fulfillment or not of the objectives of the social cell.
EQUITY AND EFFECTIVENESS
The function of the patrimonial environment is the exercise of wealth, being aimed at satisfying the need. When the need is satisfied, there is effectiveness and when this does not occur, there is ineffectiveness. According to Prof. Lopes de Sá: "The patrimonial environment will be effective if, and only if, it meets the need".
So, for example, if the owner of a Clothing Store observes that he has a stock of shirts and that he needs to sell them, in order to have the means to payments (cash) in cash (need) seeks to make sales by "rotating" what has as the object of its business (phenomenon circulatory). Fitted to shirts, it fulfills a work step and satisfies the pertinent need.
In the above example, therefore, the effectiveness, however, in possession of the net means of payment (money), the merchant he has needs again, as a result, that is, to buy more shirts to sell them again (phenomenon circulatory).
There is a constant renewing of needs and an equally constant goal of achieving effectiveness, as the satisfaction of what is needed.
This permanent movement of needs and their satisfaction is what gives rise to the natural dynamics of effectiveness.
In accounting, the objective of our analyzes must focus on these occurrences because they represent the essence of the facts.
THE EQUITY AND INEFFECTIVENESS
The patrimonial environment, if it does not satisfy the need, will be ineffective.
Let's admit some hypothetical facts, for the study of a case, that is, that of a company that, in a certain place or city (spatiality) and time (temporality) is faced with the drop in the purchasing power (economic phenomenon) of its consumers products.
In this case, there will be a retraction in consumption, which is an economic fact. The study of this event is of interest to the economy. It is economic science that studies market phenomena and this exogenous environmental influence, exemplified, will, however, cause idleness in the assets of that company.
When the occurrence reaches the social cell, in its patrimony, the phenomenon acquires its own characteristics and, as stated by Aristotle, in his Politics, it no longer belongs to the study of economics.
It is no longer, therefore, an economic phenomenon, for accountants, but an influence coming from something external, which reached the internal wealth of the social cell and which is the company, promoting effects specific.
One thing is what happens in the market in general and another thing what happens within a particular business.
Accounting studies individualized wealth and external pressures are analyzed by the effects they cause, without concern for knowing the general causes, but rather the company's own.
In the example, the idleness of stocks that are not sold will cause loss of function or utility, thus creating inefficiency.
Every ineffectiveness contributes to the functional decline of the social cell. The constant inefficiency of equity resources can cause the deterioration of the company's functional capacity and even lead to bankruptcy.
Take the example of a car and parts dealership that has gone bankrupt. When we observe the causes of the imbalance in wealth, we can, for example, detect that the main the reason was the ineffectiveness of payments to suppliers caused by the diversion of working capital.
Bankruptcy, however, not only shakes the social cell, but also the society in which it is inserted. If employees suddenly lose their jobs, the community in one way or another is harmed. The company as a living social cell has a performance and its death leads to imbalances.
Accounting, however, is interested in what happens to the cell itself, given its wealth, but it cannot ignore the social and economic influences that ensue.
STATIC AND PATRIMONIAL DYNAMICS IN MODERNITY
Patrimonial statics examine the environment or wealth in its pertinent structural and equilibrium states, while dynamics has movement as its scope.
For Masi (apud Sá, 1997, p. 130), the Patrimonial Statics aims at the structure of the great aziendal wealth system and the Patrimonial Dynamics the movement of this structure either under the aspect of the quality of the elements, or under that of its expressions in value (qualitative and quantitative), with the Heritage Survey being the rational information that allows for information on such relationships and aspects, but in a scientific way.
Masi (apud Sá, 1997, p.134) tells us: Every static position contains in itself dynamic elements while expressing a balance of heritage values that actually have a movement, to them imprinted by the life of the company: considering the capital, because, at a given moment (static position) we can assess how the equilibrium point finds itself and thus locate its barycentre.
Sá (1997 p.130), teaches: “Theoretically, the heritage would tend to static, if it did not suffer the action of environmental agents, but it is due to the permanent evolution of the external elements that the wealth becomes moves”.
Exogenous environmental factors influence the dynamics of heritage resources.
For this statement we can remember, as an example, the change of seasons.
The arrival of cold weather in the southern region brought an increase of up to 20% in sales to the Clothing Stores. Thrift stores (pre-new clothing stores) had an increase of up to 60% compared to last year. Pharmacies, as a result of the rapid cooling of time, had an increase in sales of medicines for flu and colds. We observe from these simple examples that there has been an increase in sales of cold-weather clothing and medicines for respiratory problems typical of the cold season, all due to factors external to the cell Social.
When analyzing these facts we observe that:
1st. The circulatory phenomenon (sale) of the patrimonial means of clothing stores, thrift stores and pharmacies increased;
2nd. the increase in the circulatory phenomenon of heritage media was caused by exogenous environmental influence (increased cold).
We can conclude that exogenous environmental influences cause heritage phenomena.
Exogenous environmental influences can increase or decrease the circulatory phenomenon (sale) of the media assets, changing the compositions of wealth, as well as the functions of all its systems assets.
Just as the natural phenomenon, in the example, the increase in cold weather, can bring benefits to some sectors of the market, it will also bring negative influences to other segments.
The cold results in a decrease in sales of ice cream, popsicles, beverages such as beer and soft drinks, thus creating, in this period, a reduction in the circulatory phenomenon of these sectors of the economy.
When there is a decrease in sales, there is idleness of equity resources.
We note that exogenous environmental influence brings benefits to some sectors and harms to others.
These influences on equity assets are constant and should be objectified as natural in the study of accounting facts.
When we look at a company's equity, it seems that it is static. In reality, however, wealth is always dynamic and moves constantly and even if some transformations that escape our apparent observations, will never, essentially, fail to exist.
Constant mutations, therefore, deriving from acts of administration or personnel, even external to wealth itself, for this set of factors derived from the origin of resources and application of resources, will always generate the dynamics equity. In this constant dynamism, heritage phenomena are created that must be studied in their causes, as is natural in the field of all sciences (which preferentially seek to know the causes as logical explanations of truths or realities that we accept).
PATRIMONIAL PHENOMENON
Each and every occurrence that manifests itself in the essence of aziendal wealth is a patrimonial phenomenon.
“Whether or not it can be achieved through observation or perceived by man, everything that in itself happens to aziendal heritage is a patrimonial phenomenon (Sá, 1998 p.147)”.
Whenever an event changes the wealth of the social cell, it will give rise to a patrimonial phenomenon.
The payment of a duplicate, the purchase of merchandise, the sale of merchandise are patrimonial phenomena.
There is a very varied occurrence of patrimonial phenomena that are processed at each moment, regardless of the size of the company. In a small social cell, the occurrences of patrimonial phenomena may be smaller, but they will not cease to happen as a result of the constant transformations that are those of the nature of all wealth.
Important, for Accounting, is the path between the need and its satisfaction.
As there is a risk in every movement of wealth, although these are the nature of the activities, only phenomena that protect themselves against the misfortunes of the Business.
A stopped engine, for example, causes a dysfunction of assets.
Accounting, however, studies both the natural and the unnatural patrimonial phenomenon.
Accounting models must be built on the basis of normal occurrences that result in effectiveness. The same happens in medicine, where the human body that is based is that of a normal being. For abnormal cases there is a specific study and that of Pathology. Accounting does not exclude the study and analysis of the unnatural fact, but, as in the case of medicine, it studies it in the field of abnormality.
The lack of money to pay suppliers on the proper date is unnatural.
The misuse of raw material or its waste is unnatural.
Goods are purchased, for example, so that it fully fulfills its function of being the basic vehicle of profit and this is "natural" (buying at one price and selling at one that covers all the charges and leaves a profit margin).
The study of the patrimonial phenomenon is an essential matter of Accounting.
What matters is to know, however, is whether the phenomenon caused effectiveness or ineffectiveness.
The record of facts, with due measurement, the statement are important in accounting, but the "most important" is the explanation of the patrimonial phenomenon and the analysis of its capacity to be effective or ineffective.
For the Accounting Consultant's analysis, it is essential to know the consequences of the equity phenomenon and the accounting record is no more than a simple instrument.
The sale of goods is an equity phenomenon and, therefore, generates an accounting record. It is important, however, to know what this fact influenced in the effectiveness, whether relative to the systems or to the absolute effectiveness of the social cell.
The accounting record must reflect the reality of the fact that occurred in the company, but the opinion about the fact that occurred, in addition to being precise, it must have comparisons with the desirable reality (this is the reason for the scientific models in Accounting, according to Lopes de Sa).
Science is only interested in the truth. The truth is sought in the observation of concrete facts, of facts that mirror reality. It is these factors that generate the opinion and serve as a basis for the aforementioned models.
Galileo Galilei, in formulating his laws of the free fall of bodies, used the observations and results of experiments, but he only gave his opinion when he found logical relationships between them (this is the reason for Neopatrimonialism lopesist; be inspired by logical relations of heritage phenomena).
INERTIA AND PATRIMONIAL MOVEMENT BEFORE NEOPATRIMONIALISM
One of the axioms of Prof. Lopes de Sá says: "The patrimonial environment (Pm) tends to imply movement, which logically implies transformation (Tr) of wealth, in social cells".
This axiom is fundamental to wealth dynamics. Whenever there is a movement of assets, there is a transformation of wealth, therefore, such relationships are inherent and fundamental.
We can also affirm, as an inference, that the increase in the functional intensity of the heritage environment depends on endogenous and exogenous environmental influences. Likewise, the declines in the functional intensity of the patrimonial element resulted from the same reasons, thus, as the surroundings of wealth increase or decrease the intensities of the movements of the patrimony.
It is undeniable that Neopatrimonialism, through its theorems (the only current of thought that elaborated a theory from a considerable number of theorems), those of Lopes de Sá, Nepomuceno and others, has been responsible for a more advanced view of open and systematic concepts in accounting, competent for a new dynamic vision of the phenomena of cell wealth social.
Recognized, the theory of systematic functions, in its statements, that wealth, by itself, tends not to cause circulatory movements and phenomena and that these only have the capacity to offer judgment if systematized. He established, the Lopesist thought, that endogenous and exogenous environmental influence is necessary for the inertia to be broken and enunciated the group of logical environmental relations as an aggregate.
Enunciated, Neopatrimonialism, that the endogenous action occurs when the movement or circulatory phenomenon is caused by the administration or personnel, but, it linked such facts to two large genetic groups: idealization and materialization, thus, accepted in my studies as affiliated to this current, the more modern accounting and in the case referred to, for example, if a good is bought and left in stock, it tends to stay there until a fact move. One of the theorems of Lopes de Sá, the intellectual leader of Neopatrimonialism, says: "While a patrimonial environment does not produce function, it tends to remain in its inertial state".
The environment of wealth, internal or endogenous, is the main factor in most routine movements, but we cannot deny what also happens at every moment, coming from the outside world.
Everything circulates at the whim of actions and most of these come from the surroundings of wealth.
The same enunciated Isaac Newton for bodies, in physics.
We must not confuse, however, the movement in accounting with that of physics, in accounting, the movement produces transformation and the patrimonial environment it may even be physically stationary, but for physics, the body (mass) necessarily moves, moving, according to a force over it acted.
Prof. Lopes de Sá teaches us that "Movement is everything that produces transformation, whether of need or purpose, utility or function, or quality, whether in terms of quantity, time, or space, etc." And he adds that: "Current produces movement, but not every movement of heritage is of nature current".
"Every fact capable of altering the logical relationships that determine heritage phenomena is a patrimonial movement."
The patrimonial movement takes place when the baker buys flour (raw material) and turns it into bread or when the carpenter buys the wood and turns it into furniture to sell.
Another transformation takes place, even without any internal movement, when a company has an engine and this one is surpassed by another one with much higher yield capacity and that appears on the market (obsolescence).
There was, in the example, a patrimonial movement and not a physical movement. The engine remained in stock, stopped, but lost its usefulness and value due to exogenous environmental influence.
Obsolescence does not depend on internal action, always arising from an external fact, today, it is a very serious problem and there is a rapid innovation of patrimonial means, as a result of new technologies.
This is the case of an auto parts company that constantly needs to renew its stock and if it doesn't, the risk of their assets becoming obsolete, due to new technologies used in automobiles.
Also, it is the case of a computer company, where there are fast and constant changes. The manufacture of new electronic components is replacing those on the market, it is one of the sectors of the economy that has had a rapid development in recent years and is at serious risk.
The purchase of an electronic element, left in stock, once obsolete, tends to inertia.
"Inertia is an abstraction, of a relative position, because it is the nature of heritage to render usefulness through the constant use of aziendal wealth" (Sá, 1998, p.157).
An asset acquired and stored remains in a state of inertia until an event produces movement. In inertia it continues its potential, but its functional capacity may be altered by exogenous environmental influences at any time. If in the market, due to competition, there is a price drop, it will undergo a transformation in its value. Thus, there was a movement of assets and this, too, is a case of loss of potential.
All heritage assets acquired and integrated into the heritage, therefore, are subject to constant environmental influences, whether endogenous or exogenous. It can be in a static state (theoretically) but it turns out that there will constantly be influences external environmental effects on the same that imply in transformation and this in aspect of dynamic equity.
We cannot forget that the social cell is part of the environment or continent where it is inserted, it receives internal and external environmental influences as, by interaction, it also influences this environment and this interaction is a reality and Lopes theories are concerned with bringing such realities together in theory own.
Neopatrimonialism, when concerned with all this, stands out as the accounting doctrine that does not third millennium is able to support the accelerated evolution of a world at high speed of transformations.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Per Werno Herckert
Columnist Brazil School
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Economy - Brazil School
