Why do we need Accounting Standards?

Accounting is used everywhere and it covers unlimited range of activities.The users need an Assurance that the methods adopted to calculate revenue, expenses and balance sheet values are reliable. Without such an assurance there will be no faith and sensible decisions cannot be made. So some general principles can be laid, but detailed regulation is not possible. 

It can be said that Accounting Standards helps bring such an assurance to some extent. It is impossible to provide 100% assurance of the validity of financial statements through the creation of single set of rules and procedures.

 So there has to be some flexibility within the rules laid down.