Q. Relevance information to financial reporting?

To have relevance information should be pertinent to or affect a decision. The information should make a difference to someone who does not already have it. Appropriate information makes a difference in a decision either by affecting users' predictions of outcomes of past and present or future events or by confirming or correcting expectations. Note that information require not be a prediction to be useful in confirming, developing or altering expectations. Expectations are usually based on the present or past. For instance any attempt to predict future earnings of a company would quite probable start with a review of present and past earnings. Even though information that only confirms prior expectations may be less useful it is still relevant because it reduces uncertainty.

Critics have alleged that certain kinds of accounting information lack relevance. For instance some argue that a cost of USD 1 million paid for a tract of land 40 years ago and reported in the current balance sheet at that amount is irrelevant except for possible tax implications to users for decision making today. Such condemnation has encouraged research into the types of information relevant to users.