The two fundamental Qualitative characteristics are :
- Relevance
- Faithful Representation
What are the two types of qualitative characteristics?
For Analytical purposes, Qualitative characteristics can be differentiated into Fundamental and Enhancing qualitative characteristics. FUNDAMENTAL QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS Fundamental Characteristics distinguish useful financial reporting information from that is not useful or misleading. The two fundamental Qualitative characteristics are :
What are the fundamental qualitative characteristics of relevant information?
Fundamental Qualitative Characteristics 1 Relevance#N#Relevant information is capable of making a difference in the decisions made by users. Relevance requires... 2 Faithful Representation More ...
What are the two fundamental qualitative characteristics of accounting?
The two fundamental Qualitative characteristics are : Relevance. Faithful Representation. Relevance: In accounting, the term relevance means it will make a difference to a decision maker. Relevant information is capable of making a difference in the decisions made by users. It is capable of making a difference in decisions if it has predictive ...
What are enhancing qualitative characteristics?
ENHANCING QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS Enhancing Qualitative Characteristics distinguish more useful information from less useful information. The Enhancing Qualitative Characteristics are divided into 4 attributes. Comparability Verifiability Timeliness Understandability COMPARABILITY
What are the fundamental qualitative characteristics?
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.
What are the two qualitative characteristics?
The two fundamental Qualitative characteristics are : Relevance. Faithful Representation.Apr 15, 2017
What are the two primary qualitative characteristics of financial statements?
Fundamental (Primary) Qualitative Characteristics Relevance. Representational faithfulness.
What are the three main fundamental qualitative characteristics of financial statements?
Fundamentally, financial statement information needs to be 1) relevant and 2) faithfully represented. Faithful representation means that information is complete, neutral, and free from bias. The quality of financial statements is enhanced by comparability, verifiability, timeliness, and understandability.
What are the two fundamental qualities of accounting information?
The fundamental qualities of accounting information are relevance and reliability, also known as representational faithfulness. If accounting data is to be relevant and useful to decision makers if must be timely.
Which of the following pairs of items are the two fundamental qualitative characteristics of useful financial information?
Relevance and faithful representation are the two fundamental qualitative characteristics that make financial information useful according to the IASB Conceptual Framework.
What are the qualitative characteristics of financial statements according to the framework?
According to the framework, qualitative characteristics are the attributes that meet the decision usefulness of financial information. The framework listed these attributes as; relevance, faithful representation, comparability, understandability, verifiability and timeliness.May 4, 2016
Which of the following is a fundamental quality of useful accounting information?
Relevance and faithful representation are the two primary qualities that make accounting information useful for decision making. The idea of consistency does not mean that companies cannot switch from one accounting method to another. Timeliness and neutrality are two ingredients of relevance.
What are the four main qualitative characteristics of financial statements?
Actually there are four qualitative characteristics of financial statements. The four characteristics are understandability, relevance, reliability, and comparability.
What are qualitative characteristics of financial statements quizlet?
Comparability, verifiability, timeliness, and understandability are qualitative characteristics that enhance the usefulness of information that is relevant and faithfully represented.
What is materiality in financial statements?
Materiality is a threshold or cut-off point for information whose omission or misstatement could influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of the financial statements. This depends on the size of the item or error judged in the particular circumstances of its omission or misstatement.
What is faithful representation?
Faithful Representation. General purpose financial reports represent economic phenomena in words and numbers. To be useful, financial information must not only be relevant, it must also represent faithfully the phenomena it purports to represent. • They have applied the qualitative characteristics from the Framework.
What are fundamental qualitative characteristics?
Fundamental qualitative characteristics – Qualitative characteristics that financial information must possess to make it useful to the primary users of general purpose financial reports. They are relevance and faithful representation.
What is faithful representation?
Faithful representation. Financial reports represent economic phenomena in words and numbers. To be useful, financial information must not only represent relevant phenomena, but it must also faithfully represent the substance of the phenomena that it purports to represent. In many circumstances, the substance of an economic phenomenon ...
What is a neutral depiction?
Fundamental qualitative characteristics. A neutral depiction is without bias in the selection or presentation of financial information. A neutral depiction is not slanted, weighted, emphasised, de-emphasised or otherwise manipulated to increase the probability that financial information will be received favourably or unfavourably by users.
What is materiality in financial reporting?
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.
Is information material or qualitative?
Fundamental qualitative characteristics.
Is relevant financial information a prudence?
On the contrary, relevant financial information is, by definition, capable of making a difference in users’ decisions. Neutrality is supported by the exercise of prudence. Prudence is the exercise of caution when making judgements under conditions of uncertainty.
Is asymmetrical information qualitative?
Such asymmetry is not a qualitative characteristic of useful financial information. Nevertheless, particular Standards may contain asymmetric requirements if this is a consequence of decisions intended to select the most relevant information that faithfully represents what it purports to represent.
Why is qualitative accounting important?
The qualitative characteristics of accounting information are important because they make it easier for both company management and investors to utilize a company’s financial statements to make well-informed decisions.
What is the purpose of comparability?
Comparability is the degree to which accounting standards and policies are consistently applied from one period to another. Financial statements that are comparable, with consistent accounting standards and policies applied throughout each accounting period, enable users to draw insightful conclusions about the trends and performance of the company over time. In addition, comparability also refers to the ability to easily compare a company’s financial statements with those of other companies.
What is representational faithfulness?
Representational faithfulness, also known as reliability, is the extent to which information accurately reflects a company’s resources, obligatory claims, transactions, etc.
What is the extent to which information is reproducible given the same data and assumptions?
Verifiability is the extent to which information is reproducible given the same data and assumptions. For example, if a company owns equipment worth $1,000 and told an accountant the purchase cost, salvage value. Salvage Value Salvage value is the estimated amount that an asset is worth at the end of its useful life.
What are qualitative characteristics?
Qualitative characteristics are the attributes that make financial information useful to users. For Analytical purposes, Qualitative characteristics can be differentiated into Fundamental and Enhancing qualitative characteristics. Fundamental Characteristics distinguish useful financial reporting information from that is not useful or misleading.
What are the two fundamental characteristics of financial reporting?
The two fundamental Qualitative characteristics are : Relevance. Faithful Representation. Relevan ce: In accounting, the term relevance means it will make a difference to a decision maker. Relevant information is capable of making ...
Why is verifiability important in accounting?
A company's accounting results are verifiable when they're reproducible, so that, given the same data and assumptions, an independent accountant can produce the same result the company did. Verifiability helps assure that Information faithfully represents the economic phenomena it purports to represent.
What are the characteristics of faithful representation?
There are three characteristics of faithful representation: 1. Completeness: Depiction of all necessary information for a user to understand the phenomenon being depicted. It includes all necessary descriptions and explanations (adequate or full disclosure of all necessary information), 2.
What is relevant information?
Relevant information is capable of making a difference in the decisions made by users. It is capable of making a difference in decisions if it has predictive value, confirmatory value , or both. Predictive value helps users in predicting or anticipating future outcomes.
What is materiality in financial reporting?
Materiality : Information is material if omitting it, or misstating it could influence decisions that users make on the basis of financial information about a specific reporting entity. Materiality is an aspect of relevance which is entity-specific.
What are the characteristics of a qualitative information?
Fundamental Qualitative Characteristics. 1. Relevance. Relevant information is capable of making a difference in the decisions made by users. Relevance requires financial information to be related to an economic decision. Otherwise, the information is useless.
What are the characteristics of faithful representation?
There are three characteristics of faithful representation: 1. Completeness (adequate or full disclosure of all necessary information), 2. Neutrality (fairness and freedom from bias), and 3. Free from error (no inaccuracies and omissions).
What is predictive value?
Predictive value helps users in predicting or anticipating future outcomes. Confirmatory value enables users to check and confirm earlier predictions or evaluations. Materiality is an aspect of relevance which is entity-specific. It means that what is material to one entity may not be material to another.
Is financial information material or relative?
It is relative. Information is material if it is significant enough to influence the decision of users. Materiality is affected by the nature and magnitude (or size) of the item. 2. Faithful Representation. The financial information in the financial reports should represent what it purports to represent.
What is the difference between comparability and verifiability?
Comparability permits the identification and understanding of similarities and differences between items of information. Verifiability means that different observers would independently agree that the information that is presented faithfully represents the economic phenomena that it alleges to represent.
Which elements of financial statements are directly related to financial positions?
The elements of financial statements that are directly related to financial positions are assets, liabilities, and equity, while the elements directly related to financial performance are income and expenses.
What is the objective of conceptual framework?
This central objective is “ to provide financial information which is useful to both current and potential providers of resources (investors, lenders, other creditors) in the making of decisions. “
What are the elements of financial statements?
The elements of financial statements that are directly related to financial positions are assets, liabilities, and equity, ...

Fundamental (Primary) Qualitative Characteristics
Enhancing (Secondary) Qualitative Characteristics
- Qualitative characteristics of accounting information that impact how useful the information is: 1. Verifiability 2. Timeliness 3. Understandability 4. Comparability We will look at each qualitative characteristic in more detail below.
Relevance
- Relevance refers to how helpful the information is for financial decision-making processes. For accounting information to be relevant, it must possess: 1. Confirmatory value – Provides information about past events 2. Predictive value – Provides predictive power regarding possible future events Therefore, accounting information is relevant if it can provide helpful information a…
Representational Faithfulness
- Representational faithfulness, also known as reliability, is the extent to which information accurately reflects a company’s resources, obligatory claims, transactions, etc. To help, think of a pictorial depiction of something in real life – how accurately does the picture represent what you see in real life? For accounting information to possess representational faithfulness, it must be: …
Verifiability
- Verifiability is the extent to which information is reproducible given the same data and assumptions. For example, if a company owns equipment worth $1,000 and told an accountant the purchase cost, salvage value, depreciation method, and useful life, the accountant should be able to reproduce the same result. If they cannot, the information is considered not verifiable.
Timeliness
- Timeliness is how quickly information is available to users of accounting information. The less timely (thus resulting in older information), the less useful information is for decision-making. Timeliness matters for accounting information because it competes with other information. For example, if a company issues its financial statements a year after its accounting period, users o…
Understandability
- Understandability is the degree to which information is easily understood. In today’s society, corporate annual reports are in excess of 100 pages, with significant qualitative information. Information that is understandable to the average user of financial statements is highly desirable. It is common for poorly performing companies to use a lot of jargon and difficult phrasing in its …
Comparability
- Comparability is the degree to which accounting standards and policies are consistently applied from one period to another. Financial statements that are comparable, with consistent accounting standards and policies applied throughout each accounting period, enable users to draw insightful conclusions about the trends and performance of the company over time. In addition, comparab…
More Resources
- Thank you for reading CFI’s guide on Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting Information. To keep learning and advancing your career, the following resources will be helpful: 1. Audit Materiality 2. Audited Financial Statements 3. Public Company Filings 4. Financial Accounting Theory