The Role of an Accountant’s Professional Judgment in Preparing Notes to the Company’s Financial Statements

Abstract

High quality financial reporting must provide objective, complete and accurate accounting information. The analysis of trends prevailing in the international and domestic practice has shown that the main emphasis now is on explanatory information. This approach allows us not only to ease reporting forms, but also to disclose material information including information having qualitative rather than quantitative characteristics which may influence the users’ decisions. At the same time, the review of national practice of preparing notes to the financial statements allows us to single out a number of problems. First of all, they are connected with the lack of a unified legal approach to the form of notes’ presentation coupled with a certain ambiguity in making decisions about what material information to disclose. Accountant professional judgment allows us to neutralize the above mentioned inconsistencies and improve the quality of the financial information.

Keywords

• профессиональное суждение
• бухгалтерская отчетность
• пояснения к отчетности
• качественные характеристики
• достоверность
• professional judgment
• financial reporting
• notes
• qualitative characteristics
• reliability