The paper examines the concept of "creative accounting", considers its essence, as well as the conditions of its origin and implementation. It is established that a necessary condition for creative accounting is to help the company find ways to solve the problem of increasing costs by improving processes and organization of work. Negative and positive impact on the development of accounting principles. The reasons for using creative accounting and data manipulation in financial statements are summarized. ways of manifestation of creative accounting, its positive sides, the reasons of application of creative accounting are defined. It has been proven that the mechanisms of manipulating financial statements, even within the law, to some extent lead to account misuse. This affects the confidence of users of financial statements. To date, questions about the possibility of creative accounting, the procedure and functions of its application, its relationship with accounting at the enterprise level remain underdeveloped. Fully agreeing with the selected groups of methods, it should be noted that the creativity of accounting should be manifested in the definition of accounting policies of the enterprise, and not in fraud and manipulation. The choice and application of these methods has a fairly wide range, which is based on the professional judgment of the accountant, which proves the need for creativity in accounting. Considering fraud and manipulation, and their connection with creative accounting, it should be noted that one should not confuse creativity in fraud and creative accounting. Practice shows that any creativity can be used for various management needs (including fraud). Therefore, the development of a professional position on the development of creative accounting should be based on professionalism and professional ethics. Existence of alternative methods and ways of conducting accounting enables businesses to manipulate accounting data and financial reporting indicators within current legislation. In recent years, scientists often pay attention to the study of creative accounting.