INTRODUCTION
In 1975 the Corporate Report was published, this was the outcome from the Accounting Standards Steering Committee's wide ranging discussion paper and in part considered the usefulness of financial statements
(Dunn, April 2002) discusses that to meet their basic objective financial statements must be useful; and the information relevant and reliable. Information will have relevance if it influences the decisions of the users. Relevance and reliability are primary characteristics relating to content together with the threshold quality,materiality. The primary characteristics relating to presentation include comparability, clarity and understandability.
The Corporate Report in 1975 identified the major user groups listed below
? Equity Investors
? Lenders
? Employees
? The Analyst Advisor Group (financial analysts, journalists, economist's statisticians, researchers, trade unions, credit rating agencies and stockbrokers)
? The Business Contact Group (suppliers, customers & competitors)
? Government
? Public
The Users Of Financial Statements
Equity Investors can be
? Existing investors
? Potential Investors
Both existing & potential investors can be long-term or short-term investors with a sole purpose of increasing their wealth by way of capital gains (Via trading of shares/securities) or by earning dividends
Lender/Creditors often referred to as the loan creditor group are people who supply funds to the company either on a
? Short term basis
? Medium term OR
? Long term ...