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From the beginning of the new millennium, a number of accounting scandals involving audit firms have occurred. The accounting scandals involving well known Big Four audit firms have particularly been echoing in the media, which puts pressure on them and can make them more conservative in their judgements. One of the significant assumptions that auditors must assess is that of going concern of the audited entity. Existing studies from different countries and conducted for different time periods on whether the size of the auditor affects going concern uncertainty statement, do not show unique results, which implies that there are time and location specifics. Since, to the best of our knowledge, there is no such research for Croatia, the purpose of this article is to analyse on a sample of Croatian companies whether there is a significant difference between the propensity of Big Four and non-Big Four auditors to express going concern uncertainty. A sample of large financially troubled, but not bankrupt manufacturing companies, is used. The findings of our study show that there is no significant difference in stating going concern uncertainty between large international audit firms (Big Four) and smaller auditors.

Cilj ovog rada bio je istražiti računovodstvene informacijske sustave u poslovanju malih poduzeća te ispitati korištenje sveobuhvatnih rješenja kao što su Enterprise resource planning (dalje: ERP) sustavi. Korištenje ERP sustava u Republici Hrvatskoj (dalje: RH) znatno je ispod prosjeka EU-27 i daleko od postotka u kojem se ERP koristi u razvijenijim zemljama EU, a koristi od kvalitetno implementiranog ERP sustava mogu biti značajne za poduzeće. Te su nas činjenice potaknule na istraživanje korištenja ERP sustava u malim poduzećima s područja Varaždinske županije. Istraživanje je pokazalo kako mala poduzeća iz Varaždinske županije, koja je na visokom 4. mjestu po kriteriju razvijenosti županija u RH, koriste ERP sustave u znatno većoj mjeri od prosjeka za sva poduzeća s više od 10 zaposlenih u RH, te da se u skladu s očekivanjima uglavnom radi o gotovim ERP rješenjima. Većina ispitanika ulaže u taj segment zadovoljavajuće, ali ne planira buduće značajne investicije. Budući da je na razini RH prema podacima Eurostata korištenje ERP sustava znatno lošije nego u Varaždinskoj županiji, država bi ovdje mogla odigrati značajnu ulogu kroz institucionalnu pomoć malim poduzećima u RH pri uvođenju ERP sustava, kao što je slučaj u nekim tehnološki razvijenijim zemljama. ; The aim of this paper was to investigate accounting information systems in small enterprises and to examine the use of comprehensive solutions such as Enterprise resource planning (hereinafter: ERP) systems. The use of ERPs in the Republic of Croatia is significantly below the EU-27 average and far from the percentage in which ERPs are used in more developed EU countries, and the benefits of a well-implemented ERP system can be significant for the company. These facts motivated us to conduct research on the use of ERPs in small businesses from Varaždin County. The research showed that small companies from Varaždin County, which is in the high 4th place according to the criteria of county development in the Republic of Croatia, use ERP systems to a much greater extent than the average for all companies with more than 10 employees in the Republic of Croatia. In line with our expectations, these are mostly ready-made ERP solutions. Most respondents invest in this segment satisfactorily, but do not plan significant future investments. Since, according to Eurostat data, the use of ERP systems at the national level is much worse than in Varaždin County, government could play a significant role through institutional assistance to small businesses in the Republic of Croatia in introducing ERP systems, as in some more technologically advanced countries.