1、1 中文 1882 字 本科毕业 论文 （ 设计 ） 外 文 翻 译 外 文 出 处 Journal of Accountancy；Aug80, Vol.150 Issue 2, P105-120,16p 外文 作者 Miller, Paul B. W. 原文 ： Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No.2 Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting Information Primary Decision-Specific Qualities Relevance and reliability are
2、 the two primary qualities that make accounting information useful for decision making. Subject to constraints imposed by cost and materiality, increased relevance and increased reliability are the characteristics that make information a more desirable commodity-that is, one useful in making decisio
3、ns. If either of those qualities is completely missing, the information will not be useful. Though, ideally, the choice of an accounting alternative should produce information that is both more reliable and more relevant it may be necessary to sacrifice some of one quality for a gain in another. To
4、be relevant, information must be timely and it must have predictive value or feedback value or both. To be reliable, information must have representational faithfulness and it must be verifiable and neutral. Comparability, which includes consistency, is a secondary quality that interacts with releva
5、nce and reliability to contribute to the usefulness of information. Two constraints are include in the hierarchy, both primarily quantitative in character. Information can be useful and yet be too costly to justify providing it. To be useful and worth providing, the benefits of information should ex
6、ceed its cost. All of the qualities of information shown are subject to a materiality threshold, and that is also shown as a constraint. 2 Relevance Relevant accounting information is capable of making a difference in a decision by helping users to form predictions about the outcomes of past, presen
7、t and future events or to confirm or correct prior expectations. Information can make a difference to decisions by improving decision makers capacities to predict or by providing feedback on earlier expectations. Usually, information does both at once, because knowledge about the outcomes of actions
8、 already taken will generally improve decision makers abilities to predict the results of similar future actions. Without a knowledge of the past, the basis for a prediction will usually be lacking. Without an interest in the future, knowledge of the past is sterile. Timeliness, that is, having info
9、rmation available to decision makers before it loses its capacity to influence decisions, is an ancillary aspect of relevance. If information is not available when it is needed or becomes available so long after the reported events that it has no value for future action, it lacks relevance and is of
10、 little or no use. Timeliness alone cannot make information relevant, but a lack of timeliness can rob information of relevance it might otherwise have had. Reliability The reliability of a measure rests on the faithfulness with which it represents what it purports to represent, coupled with an assu
11、rance for the user that it has that representational quality. To be useful, information must be reliable as well as relevant. Degrees of reliability must be recognized. It is hardly ever a question of black or white, but rather of more reliability or less. Reliability rests upon the extent to which
12、the accounting description or measurement is verifiable and representational faithful. Neutrality of information also interacts with those two components of reliability to affect the usefulness of the information. Verifiability is a quality that may be demonstrated by securing a high degree of conse
13、nsus among independent measures using the same measurement methods. Representational faithfulness, on the other hand, refers to the correspondence or events those numbers purport to represent. A high degree of correspondence, however, does not guarantee that an accounting measurement will be relevan
14、t to the users 3 needs if the resources or events represented by the measurement are inappropriate to the purpose at hand. Neutrality means that, in formulating or implementing standards, the primary concern should be the relevance and reliability of the information that results, not the effect that
15、 the new rule may have on a particular interest. A neutral choice between accounting alternatives is free from bias towards a predetermined result. The objectives of financial reporting serve many different information users who have diverse interests, and no one predetermined result is likely to su
16、it all interests. Comparability and Consistency Information about a particular enterprise gains greatly in usefulness, if it can be com pared with similar information about other enterprises and with similar information about the same enterprise for some other period or some other point in time. Com
17、parability between enterprises and consistency in the application of methods over time increases the informational value of comparisons of relative economic opportunities or performance. The significance of information, especially quantitative information, depends to a great extent on the users abil
18、ity to relate it to some benchmark. Materiality Materiality is a pervasive concept that relates to the qualitative characteristics, especially relevance and reliability. Materiality and relevance are both defined in terms of what influences or makes a difference to a decision maker, but the two term
19、s can be distinguished. A decision not to disclose certain information may be made, say, because investors have no need for that kind of information (it is nit relevant) or because the amounts involved are too small to make a difference (they are not material). Magnitude by itself, without regard to
20、 the nature of the item and the circumstances in which the judgment has to be made, will not generally be a sufficient basis for a materiality judgment. The Boards present position is that no general standards of materiality ban be formulated to take into account all the considerations that enter into an experienced human judgment. Quantitative materiality criteria may be given by the Board in specific standards in the future, as in the past, as appropriate.
