However, the enhancing qualitative characteristics will be useless if the financial information is irrelevant or not faithfully represented in fundamental step. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on the UKDiss.com website then please: Our academic writing and marking services can help you! According to this principle, the cost of applying an accounting principle should not be more than its benefits. All work is written to order. Materiality can be explained as the level of an omission or misstatement of financial reporting information which could influence the decision of users. Going concern. Therefore, a various type of judgments and estimation based on appropriate input are used by the management in assessing the financial reporting. Benefits to preparers may include greater management control and access to capital at a lower cost. Comparability between entities and consistency in the application of methods or procedures over time period will enhance the informational value in relative economic performance. Relevant financial reporting information means the ability of users (shareholder) to make a difference in their decision. Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. Rule-making bodies and governmental agencies use cost-benefit analysis before making final their informational requirements. Therefore, companies must consider the cost-benefit relationship. Materiality is said to be one of the pervasive constraint on financial reporting because it attribute to all the qualitative characteristics. Answer to QUESTION 9 Constraints on qualitative characteristics of accounting information include: Freedom from material error. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! The application of the enhancing qualitative characteristics is redundant process that does not follow priority and prescribed order. If the cost is more, this principle should be modified. However, due to some constraint and uncertainty in economy phenomena, financial reporting information does not provide absolutely value which is totally free from error. In other words, the principle of conservatism requires that in the situation of uncertainty and doubt, the business transactions should be recorded in such a manner that the profits and assets are not overstated. To justify requiring a particular measurement or disclosure, the benefits perceived to be derived from it must exceed the costs perceived to be associated with it. Complete financial reporting information must have all the necessary information which is useful for decision making and should not be missing a material fact or consideration that would cause the financial reporting information misleading. As noted earlier, benefits are generally more difficult to quantify than are costs. When excessive provisions for bad and doubtful debts and depreciation are charged, it leads to the creation of secret reserves, and thus, this principle conflicts with the principle of full disclosure. Comparability refers to the ability of the users to distinguish similarities and differences between two economic phenomena. They must consider the costs of providing information against the benefits that can be derived from using it. Materiality is said to be one of the pervasive constraint on financial reporting because it attribute to all the qualitative characteristics. Sometimes, the information is complicated and hard to understand, the users may seek an advisor to explain to them. However, it is often incomplete and imperfect if using qualitative technique to analysis cost and benefit of financial reporting. In order to maximize the fundamental qualitative characteristics, some degree of comparability should be included in relevant and faithful representation. According to the materiality principle, all relatively relevant items, the knowledge of which might influence the decision of the users of the financial statements, should be disclosed in the financial statements. If the quarterly reports are made available on a half-yearly basis, the information contained in the quarterly report would not be very useful to the decision-makers since the information has lost its capacity to influence the decision during half-year, after the expiry of which the quarterly report had been submitted. According to this principle, whatever accounting practices (whether logical or not) are selected for a given category of transactions, they should be followed on a horizontal, basis from one accounting period to another to achieve compatibility, e.g., if the inventory is valued on (LIFO) basis, this basis should be followed year after year and if a particular asset is depreciated according to (WDV) method, this method should be followed year after year. Normally, management will tend to use more qualitative rather than quantitative when evaluating and justify those costs in the benefit of financial reporting information. The costs are of several kinds: costs of collecting and processing, of disseminating, or auditing, of potential litigation, of disclosure to competitors, and analysis and interpretation. In order to provide a faithful representation and relevant financial information, materiality level should be establish so as to detect material misstatement to avoid incomplete, biased, or not free from error in financial reporting information. This chapter describes the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. Neutrality. According to this principle, timely information (though less reliable) should be made available to the decision-makers. Cost is one of the pervasive constraints in providing useful financial reporting. Information has predictive value if the value can be useful to the shareholder in predicting certain things that is related to future. Information regarding to economic phenomenon will help the users make a difference decision if it included predictive value and confirmatory value. The difficulty in cost-benefit analysis is that the costs and especially the benefits are not always evident or measurable. Top of Form. A set of financial reporting information is said to be true if the information is free from error. Useful financial information needs not only be a relevant but also be a faithful representation. For instance, the plant and equipment presents in the balance sheet may stand for all the plant and equipment that owned by entity. To make the information useful, the basic accounting assumptions and principles discussed earlier, have to be modified and find their limitation. It is not appropriate for an enterprise, to leave its accounting policies unchanged when more relevant and reliable alternatives exist. Financial reporting information included the characteristics of complete, neutral, and free from material error is supposed to be faithful representation of an economic phenomenon. Therefore, companies must consider the cost-benefit relationship. Which information is more relevant than others is largely a matter of judgment. Too often, users assume that information is free. For example, materiality need to be measured when determine the sufficiency of relevant information and sufficiency of complete, neutral, and free from error to faithfully represent in financial reporting. Once the relevance is applied to distinguish which economic phenomena should be presented, faithful representation is going to determine which characteristics are best to correspond to the relevant phenomena. 1st Jan 1970 This principle is an exception to the full disclosure principle. Verification can be distinguished as direct or indirect. You can view samples of our professional work here. If such situation happened, appropriate information or evidence should be disclosed. The estimation of probable losses is a subjective judgment and thus, this principle conflicts with the principle of objectivity. We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Study for free with our range of university lectures! Shareholders and individual entities use financial reporting information to make decision and enjoy those benefits will lower the cost of capital. A constraint on qualitative characteristics of accounting information is: Timeliness. Relevance is the fundamental qualitative characteristic which connected to the economic phenomena and must be considered first before the other qualitative characteristics. Therefore, relevance and faithful representation must work in a line to provide useful financial information to the users. The qualitative characteristics can be categorized as fundamental (relevance and faithful representation) or enhancing (comparability, verifiability, timeliness and understandability) based on how they influence the usefulness of financial information. Cost-effectiveness. Cost of producing information such as cost of collecting, classifying, processing, verifying and disseminating should be determined clearly. 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