PROVIDING A SERVICE
7
Ultimately, what is considered material is a matter of judgement. When making this kind
of judgement, managers should consider how this information is likely to be used by users.
If a piece of information is not considered material, it should not be included within the
accounting reports. It will merely clutter them up and, perhaps, interfere with the users’
ability to interpret them.
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Faithful representation.
Accounting information should represent what it is meant to repre-
sent. To do so, the information provided must reflect the
substance
of what has occurred
rather than simply its
legal form
. Take for example a manufacturer that provides goods to
a retailer on a sale-or-return basis. The manufacturer may wish to treat this arrangement as
two separate transactions. Thus, a contract may be agreed for the sale of the goods and a
separate contract agreed for the return of the goods if unsold by the retailer. This may result
in a sale being reported when the goods are delivered to the retailer even though they are
returned at a later date. The economic substance, however, is that the manufacturer made
no sale as the goods were subsequently returned. They were simply moved from the manu-
facturer’s business to the retailer’s business and then back again.
Accounting reports
should reflect this economic substance. To do otherwise would be misleading.
To provide a perfectly faithful representation, the information should be
complete.
In other
words, it should incorporate everything needed to understand what is being portrayed.
Thus, information relating to a particular item would normally contain a description of its
nature, some suitable numerical measurement and, where necessary,
explanations of
important facts. Information should also be
neutral,
which means that it should be pre-
sented and selected without bias. No attempt should be made to manipulate the informa-
tion in such a way as to influence user attitudes and behaviour. Finally, it should be
free
from error.
This is not the same as saying that it must be perfectly accurate. Accounting
information often contains estimates, such as future sales or costs, which may turn out to
be inaccurate. Nevertheless, estimates may still be faithfully represented providing they are
accurately described and properly prepared.
In practice, do you think that each piece of accounting information
produced will be
perfectly complete, neutral and free from error?
Probably not – however, each piece of information should be produced with these aims
in mind.
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