The authors have conducted a retrospective analysis of the historical and logical stages of establishing the financial reporting system in the Russian Federation for determining the development direction of public reporting of economic entities and justifying the need to prepare integrated corporate reporting that meets the information needs of interested parties. The use of a paradigm approach made it possible to justify the regularities of the formative stages of accounting environment, to distinguish the key foundations of complex accounting information, to determine the current needs of business informatization and preparation of integrated corporate reporting.