The principle characteristics of FINANCIAL statements are the attributes that make the information provided in the financial statements useful to the users. The principle qualitative characteristics are

• Understandability: They should be readily understandable to the users. For this purpose users are deemed to have reasonable knowledge of business and economic activities.
• RELEVANCE: To be useful information must be relevant to the decision-making needs of the users.
• Reliability: Information is said to be reliable when it is free from errors, bias and can be depended upon by the users to represent faithfully, which it purports to represent.
• COMPARABILITY: Users must be able to COMPARE the financial statements of an enterprise through time in order to identify TRENDS in its financial position and performance.

The principle characteristics of financial statements are the attributes that make the information provided in the financial statements useful to the users. The principle qualitative characteristics are