What is the most important quality characteristic of accounting information

The most important quality characteristic of accounting information is its decision usefulness.

The quality characteristics of accounting information include relevance, reliability, verifiability, fidelity and neutrality, timeliness, comparability, uniformity and consistency, comprehensibility, and materiality.

Relevance and Timeliness

Relevance and reliability are the basic characteristics of the quality of accounting information, and some other concepts or characteristics are closely related to these two attributes.

The so-called relevance refers to the fact that the accounting information provided is related to the users' decision-making, which can enhance the users' forecasting and decision-making ability, and thus affect their investment or other economic behaviors. Users' decisions include investment decisions, loan decisions, production and operation decisions, fund-raising decisions, dividend distribution decisions and so on.

Another attribute subordinate to relevance is timeliness. Timeliness has two meanings. One is that the information is provided to the user in a timely manner. Relevant information must be provided to the user before the decision to give full play to its value; if the information is not provided in a timely manner, decision makers will miss the opportunity, the relevant information will become useless information. The second layer of meaning refers to the provision of financial reports should be as far as possible, including future information that affects the user's decision-making, implied future development of the current information, so that users can take timely measures to avoid panic in the future.

Reliability, relevance, comprehensibility and comparability are the primary quality requirements of accounting information, is the basic quality characteristics of accounting information provided in the financial reports of enterprises should have, of which: reliability is an important foundation and the key to high-quality accounting information, if the enterprise to false economic operations for the recognition, measurement, reporting, is an illegal act, will not only seriously damage the quality of accounting information The company's business is to provide a high quality accounting information, and it will mislead investors, interfere with the capital market, and lead to chaos in the accounting order.