BHP Billiton Ltd

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

ii – In terms of useful information, the cost of collating information using a financial statement should

The requirements of the applicable financial reporting framework relevant to accounting estimates, including related disclosures

To enhance a user’s ability to understand and compare an entity’s operating results, reporting entities are required to describe all significant accounting policies in their financial statements. As such to decide if an accounting principal is significant, is the management’s decision.

3. How can financial information be relevant to the users of financial reports? (2 Marks)

Quality of reported financial information is a critical element in evaluating financial statement data. The higher the quality of financial reporting, the more useful the information is for business decision making.

As the business environment grows and companies find new ways to expand into their respective - or even new – markets, it is important that reporting standards stay up to date with changes and continue to assist companies in providing their users with useful accounting information. Information is labelled as being useful when it meets the

Full disclosure requires companies to report existing accounting policies, any changes to the policies, for instance, method of asset valuation. In full disclosure, companies give information about the nature and justification of changes in the accounting principles, encumbered assets, non-monetary transactions, asset retirement obligations, goodwill impairment circumstances, and lower of cost or market rule material losses. Accounting policies include the specific practices, rules, conventions, bases, and principles an entity uses to prepare and present its financial statements. Accounting policies should be selected and applied consistently for similar transactions, other conditions and events, unless otherwise stated by IFRS.

This report is written as a response to the monograph in which the ICAEW published on how financial accounting disclosures can be improved. The aim of this report is to critically discuss and evaluate the worthwhileness of the recommendations made from a financial investor’s perspective. It is done by reviewing recommendations put forward by the ICAEW and analysing if each of the disclosure recommended is worth the effort while putting in perspective what effects these recommendations have on professional investors who are one of the primary users and consumers of financial statements. The report contains information mainly from the ICAEW report and the CFA institute report

FASB issues different types of exposure documentation to solicit input on its standards setting activities, includes discussion papers, exposure drafts, preliminary views and comment section. One of standards and rulings that being contemplated through pending exposure draft document of FASB is the proposed accounting standard update on Statement of Cash Flows (Topic 230) specifically on classification of certain cash receipts and cash payments which is a consensus of the FASB Emerging Issues Task Force. The stakeholders has stated there are diversity in the statement of cash flows on how certain cash receipts and cash payment are presented and categorized. This proposal of accounting standards update is to provide solution on eight specific

This paper will analyze these views as they apply to the discloser of segment information for public entities as required by topic 280 of the FASB accounting standards codification, and discussed in Statement of Financial Standards No. 131 (“SFAS 131). The paper is structured as follows: Section II provides an overview of the objective and general purpose of financial reporting and the qualitative characteristics off useful financial information as determined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”), section III introduces the concept of segment reporting and outlines the requirements for disclosures of segment information for public companies, section IV evaluates the relevance of

The purpose of this research report is to understand of two important concepts from the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting----the objective of general purpose financial reporting and qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. In this report, Myer Holdings Ltd is as an example to describe these two concepts. This report includes the analysis on whether the disclosure of PPE from Myer Holdings Ltd meets the requirements of AASB 116, especially the requirements of objective

For BHP Billiton and ANZ, financial reporting is an integral part of their business, the primary objective is to provide the most useful information for stakeholders in their decision-making; it helps ensure that the companies and organizations are in good financial condition in the industry and that their operations are honest and transparent to follow the rules and regulations under the restriction of the law. Both of these companies comply with the necessary government requirements and disclosure for the sake of their investors, and stakeholders, while managers use this data to make important decisions, adjustment, budgeting and changes needs for their investment.

In any business operations, full financial disclosure refers to the provision of the necessary information about a company for better decision making by the people accustomed. It is the financial revelation of a given company. There are some financial disclosures in any business that ensure proper understanding of financial statements to the financial readers, or potential auditors. Examples are the annual financial reports and the financial declarations of the company. The annual financial reports of the enterprise are very useful since they discloses the revenues recognized in the business, and the accountability of the inventories plus the income taxes accounted for during that period of operation. Second, is the disclosure of this financial statements which gives the actual revelation of the company 's stock options, liabilities and the effects of foreign currencies?! This disclosure includes the company 's balance sheet of the year, income statements and also the cash statements flows of that year. This information gives a proper understanding of the financial status users about the effects of inflation and price change on property and inventories (Berger, 2011).

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.