F8-Materiality

ACCA F8考試：Materiality

1 Concept

Materiality (from IASB and IFRS)—information is material if its omission or misstatement could influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of the financial statements. ...Materiality depends on the size of the item or error judged in the particular circumstances of its omission or misstatement. It provides a threshold or cut-off point rather than being a primary qualitative characteristic which information must have if it is to be useful.

Performance materiality (from ISA 320)—the amounts set by the auditor at less than materiality for the financial statements as a whole to reduce to an appropriately low level the probability that the aggregate of uncorrected and undetected misstatements exceeds materiality for the financial statements as a whole.

2 Basic Principles

The auditor must use his professional judgement to determine exactly what is, and what is not, material based on:

his understanding of the entity and its environment;

its financial results (transactions and balances) and disclosures; and

the requirements of the users of the financial statements.

A rigid materiality model would not be practical because of the many differences between entities and the users of their financial statements.

Materiality may be quantitative (based on values) or qualitative (based on the nature of the matter).

Although an individual amount or procedure may not be material, consideration must be given to the cumulative impact, for example:

An error in a procedure may not be material, but repeating (e.g. each month) would indicate a potential material misstatement.

Individual immaterial pricing errors in raw materials may result in a cumulative total that will be material especially when extrapolated through work-in-progress and finished goods.

Failure to apply an accounting policy (e.g. depreciation of buildings) may not be material to profit and loss in any one year, but cumulatively it may become so (e.g. in accumulated depreciation on the statement of financial position).