Weighing up the costs and benefits

You may feel that, when considering a piece of accounting information, provided four main qualities identified are present and it's material it must be gathered and made available to users. Unfortunately, there is one more hurdle to jump. Something may still exclude a piece of accounting information from the reports even when it is considered to be useful.

Theoretically, a particular item of accounting information must only be produced if costs of providing it are less than benefits, or value, to be derived from its use. Figure demonstrates relationship between the costs and value of providing extra accounting information.

                     Figure: Relationship between costs and the value of providing additional accounting information