QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION

Qualitative characteristics are the attributes that make the information provided in financial statements useful to users. The four principal qualitative characteristics are understandability, relevance, reliability and comparability. It is also pointed out that these qualitative characteristics may need to be balanced against one another. (John Wiley& Sons Australia, Ltd, 2009) The relative importance of the characteristics in different cases is a matter of professional judgment.

Relevance

Relevance refers to the information provided with the statements of users associated with the purpose to be achieved. If a message has nothing to do with the statements of purpose of the user, which of course useless, which includes prediction, feedback functions, measurement function and timeliness properties.

Relevant information also helps decision makers confirm or correct prior expectations; it has "Feedback Value". (Obaidat, Ahmad N, 2007) Enterprises to provide accounting information to be able to be useful for decision-making, then the natural requirement that such information associated with the decision-making. Irrelevant information is not to mention useful for decision-making. Accounting information has come from all aspects of the user; different users of accounting information have different requirements, so the same for different users of accounting information, its relevance will be different. Accounting information related to these decision-makers. But for the other decision-mak