THE ROLE OF INFORMAL RESEARCH METHODS IN THE FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES OF BUSINESS ENTITIES

The article is devoted to the study of the role of informal methods in the context of financial analysis of the financial activities of business entities. The understanding of the concept of «method» and the differences between formalized and informal methods of analysis, which can be used both in financial and strategic analysis of business entities, are studied. Formalized methods in financial analysis are an important, but not exhaustive, tool for making informed business decisions, because in the financial sphere there are phenomena that have a significant impact on the results of financial and economic activity of enterprises and organizations, but to a lesser extent are amenable to formalized assessment. In general, informal methods help when solving non-standard analytical tasks or in conditions of lack of (limited) information. Therefore, next to the formalized ones, it is advisable to use informal methods that are based on intuition, creative search, logic and experience of research experts. In the structure of non-formalized (heuristic) methods, expert evaluation methods and psychological methods are most often distinguished. Psychological methods include: «brainstorming», the method of analogies, inversions, «conferences of ideas», etc. As for the group of expert evaluation methods, the scenario method, analytical method, «interview» method, commission method, Delphi method, matrix method, morphological method, etc. are most often used in financial analysis. Each of the listed methods can be used at different stages of conducting a financial analysis of the financial activities of economic entities and investigate various financial phenomena. As a result of the conducted research, the following key characteristics of informal methods in the context of their use in the financial analysis of the financial activity of economic entities are summarized: a higher share of subjectivism compared to the use of formalized methods; use in many cases in parallel with formalized methods; application mostly for forecasting the development of financial phenomena and assessing the degree of financial risks.