Critically Evaluate the Importance of Regulator in Financial Statement

In accounting there is much to be learned, about the financial aspects of a business. In the past five weeks I have learned the importance of financial reports and how they relate to the success of an establishment. These reports may include balance sheets and income statements, which help accountants and the public grasp the overall financial condition of a company. The information in these reports is really significant to, managers, owners, employees, and investors. Managers of a business can take and deduce financial

Financial statements are interrelated. It is so because the financial position of a business changes after each session of good or bad financial performance. Until we measure both financial performance and position, we cannot predict the cash flow position of the business.

Understanding the finances of a company is important but knowing the significance of the financial statements is crucial to the operations as well. Reviewing the statement of financial position, operating statement and statement of cash flows serve as a guidance to management and executives on the day-to-day activities of an organization (Finkler et al., 2013). For example, the statement of financial position (balance sheet) shows the assets and

As stated in the AASB Framework, financial statements play an utmost important role to a variety of users, which mainly consist of the investors, employees, lenders, suppliers and other trade creditors, customers, governments and their agencies, as well as the public, in making vital financial decisions. For accounting information to be ‘decision useful' to this groups of people, the financial information

Information contained in financial statements should be verifiable by an independent auditor. The information should be sufficiently accurate enough that any financial expert can take the information and report identical conclusions. Reliability in GAAP means the financial statements describe an accurate snap shot of an organization’s solvency.

States. Companies should report income, liability, equity, and assets. Many people (stockholders, investors, etc.) who have a stake in the company want to know this information before providing a service. In this paper, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) will be compared for

Representations are faithful if there is a correspondence or agreement between the accounting measures or descriptions in the financial reports and the economic phenomena they purport to represent (FASB, 1980: 6; FASB, 2005: 3). The difference between reliability and a faithful representation is ambiguous. Since the attributes neutrality, completeness and substance of economic phenomena (substance over form) can be classified as qualities of faithful representation, reliability becomes redundant. Consequently, a point of attention is to discuss what exactly the notions reliability and faithful representation mean and what they do not mean (FASB, 2005: 2-3).In both frameworks neutrality is defined as free from bias. 'To that end, the common conceptual framework should not include conservatism or prudence among the desirable qualitative characteristics of accounting information. However the framework should note the continuing need to be careful in the face of uncertainty' (FASB, 2005: 3).

This standard outlines the presentation of financial statements for general purpose financial statements, in order to ensure that there is compariablity between the entities reporting periods as well as between other industries reports. The standard discusses the minimum requirement for reporting content and guidelines for the structure in which it is to be set at. Paragraph 117-124 distiguishes the disclosure of accounting policies in relation to judgement. Management’s judgement made in applying accounting policies that may have effected significant amounts found in financial statements and the financial position. Seen in paragraph 125-133 ‘Sources Of Estimation Uncertainty’, it is vital that entities disclose the key assumptions made regarding future prospects and other uncertain estimates that are used in identifying carrying amounts of assets and liabilities. Along side this, the nature and carrying amount must be disclosed at the reporting date.

The use of financial statements is to provide individuals, but not a specific group with compressed financial data showing them the information that pertains to the decision they want to make. They are also able to see past performance of their company and comparing corporation that is in the same industry (Edmonds, Tsay, & Olds, 2011).

Financial statements of the company are significant for the investors who would like to venture into the business operation. It gives them the insight whether the business is making profits or it is doomed to fail;

This essay will begin to look at the main financial statements used by decision makers in businesses today. This essay will go into detail about the income statement and statement of financial position and whether these two statements provide decision makers with their financial information adequately. This essay will also include the various advantages and disadvantages of each financial statement as well as describing whom the decision makers are and why financial statements are important to them. A conclusion will be present at the end of this essay to demonstrate an overall view of whether financial statements are beneficial to decision makers.

Understanding of the information contained in the financial statements is necessary because of its significance to the users. If the accounting dealing concerned and disclosures associated aspects of presentation is very complicated for the user to understand despite the presence of sufficient knowledge of the entity and accounting in general, this would undermine the credibility of the whole financial statements because the forced users to base economic decisions on a non-reliable information (understandability,

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued for public comment two Exposure Drafts related to its disclosure framework project. The first exposure draft proposes amendments to Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts - Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting, Chapter 3 – Qualitative Characteristics of Useful Financial Information. The purpose of this proposed amendment is to clarify the concept of “materiality”. FASB defines materiality as, information is material if omitting it or misstating it could influence decisions that users make on the basis of the financial information of a specific reporting entity. In other words, materiality is an entity-specific aspect of relevance based on the nature or magnitude or both of the items to which the information relates in the context of an individual entity’s financial report. Consequently, the Board cannot specify a uniform quantitative threshold for materiality or predetermine what could be material in a particular situation.

Accounting is the art of measuring and communicating financial information. To maintain uniformity and consistency in preparing and maintaining books of accounts, certain rules or principles have been evolved. These rules or principles are classified as concepts and conventions. One of the important concept in accounting is “Measurement” (Mattessich, 1977)

The role of financial reporting is to document the activities of a business in terms of its capital, its transactions and financial movements. This information is then provided to the users who can benefit from it, including owners, managers, and shareholders etc. This allows users to make decisions concerning the business. However, in the real world, it is difficult to establish what exactly should be documented and what information can actually affect a user’s decision. The conceptual framework published by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) aims to set out the fundamental concepts in the preparation and presentation of financial statements (IFRS 2014). This essay will attempt to analyse the specific concept of prudence found in the qualitative characteristics chapter of the conceptual framework. Prudence has been omitted from the conceptual framework in recent years, and this essay will attempt to establish whether it is needed or not.