The accruals appear in the accounting model commonly. Used as provisions or estimations they represent the elements of the result required by the cash basis, they are not attributed of determination in the matching basis. By conceiving income as an important signal in the process of decision-making, the supply of a profit measure as an indicator of a company's performance becomes essential. In this way, this study is delineated as exploratory with a quantitative approach analyze the influence of accruals brought forth by depreciation in the correlation of accounting income and the net working capital variance. The 500 Brazilian greatest companies presented in research carried out by the accounting and business magazine Revista Exame (2002) were used as the target population of this study. The sample of 50 companies was firstly selected out of accessibility, and, later on, 30 was selected intentionally, heading for the collection and analysis of data. The results of this research show that there is a low negative correlation when depreciation is reduced from the accounting profit and that there is a low positive correlation when depreciation is reintegrated to the residual result. This means that the unawareness of the accounting process may influence decisions when regarding income as a measure to determine business efficiency.
accruals; accounting income; net working capital variance
