The British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) is a learned society and research organisation dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and understanding of accounting, finance and financial management. It has over 750 members and edits the British Accounting Review, an academic journal.
The association is a UK registered charity no. 299527.
Overview
BAFA promotes the development of innovative approaches to research and teaching in accounting and finance, and celebrates the breadth and diversity of research by UK and international researchers.
It collaborates with other organisations, such as the Academy of Social Sciences, the British Academy, and professional accounting bodies, to promote accounting and finance as a social science that influences professional practice and affects the economy and society.
In addition to publishing the scholarly journal, the British Accounting Review, BAFA hosts an annual conference in April that attracts academics and professionals from around the world.
History
The Association of University Teachers of Accounting (AUTA) was formed in 1947 with Donald Cousins as its first Chairman. It held its inaugural meeting in December of that year at a time when the UK’s first accounting professorships were being created and accountancy was becoming recognised as a subject for scholarly study. The AUTA followed in the footsteps of the Accounting Research Organisation, which had been established in 1936, although it had ceased activities by 1941. Harold Edey had an important role in the early years, in particular ensuring that the academic study of accounting was given value by the profession.
As a result of the small number of both researchers and teachers in accounting during the 1960s – Parker (1997, p. 45) lists a mere 21 in the whole country – and because of a distinct lack of engagement at the time from the profession, the organisation almost disappeared. However, it was given a new lease of life later in that decade when the AUTA News Review was set up (although a Newsletter had existed on a more ad hoc basis since its first issue in 1948 with Will Baxter its Editor). This publication was renamed the AUTA Review in 1974 and it then became the British Accounting Review in 1984.
Around the same time, a set of regional associations were also established, which allowed universities outside London to establish their own research foci in the accounting area. The Scottish Accountants Group ran their initial conference in April 1967 while the Northern Accountants Group also first met in that month with its first conference organised by Robert Parker taking place in October of the same year. By the end of the next decade, South-eastern and South-western groups had also been formed.
Two of BAFA’s other sub-committees, the Conference of Professors of Accounting and Finance (CPAF) and the Committee of Departments of Accounting and Finance (CDAF) were both established in 1987 as the Conference of Professors of Accounting and the Committee of Heads of Accounting in Polytechnics respectively, although the latter was initially organised as a separate entity to the AUTA.
The tradition of holding a broad-based conference in April with location moving around the United Kingdom began in 1949 in Birmingham. The organisation stopped holding conferences from 1959 to 1970 but these began again in 1971 with 62 attendees, and have been held annually since then with participant numbers growing to over 300. The conference has included a Doctoral Colloquium since 1990.
The AUTA became the British Accounting Association (BAA) in 1984 and the most recent chapter in the history of the organisation began in April 2012 when the BAA changed its name to the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) to better match its wider remit spanning finance and financial management as well as accounting.
Membership
BAFA has over 750 members, comprising academics, students and accounting professionals. There are two levels of membership: ordinary and honorary.
Ordinary membership is by application and is open to anyone with an interest in research in accounting and finance.
Honorary membership is conferred by the executive committee, in recognition of services to accounting, finance and/or financial management education and research which are deemed worthy of recognition by the association.
BAFA is not a qualifying body for the purposes of practising accounting and finance.