Users’ Opinions About The Information Content Of The Notes To The Financial Statement

In today’s accelerated world, competition amongst enterprises is becoming more and more intense. Challenges can only be met by companies that possess the information necessary for decision-making and are able to convert it rapidly into organisational knowledge. Decision-making based on inadequate knowledge further increases economic risks that are already high. In economic relations amongst enterprises, the annual financial statement is a very prominent source of information. Analysis and processing of the data represented by the published annual statement and its components (the balance sheet and profit and loss account) require the notes to the financial statement, which include information and explanations. The purpose of the notes to the financial statement is to introduce general informative data of the company and to provide complete textual explanation of entries within the balance sheet and profit and loss account, through which the financial and income situation of the company becomes clearly assessable for the external stakeholders. Apart from this, the notes to the financial statement have to create a reliable and realistic overall image. The notes to the financial statement are on the one hand based on legal regulations while on the other hand they depend on the specific properties of a given enterprise. Our research examines the opinions of economic experts and managers about the notes to the financial statement of the external stakeholders/businesses, which they come across in the decision-making process. For the study, a questionnaire survey was conducted; the target group were enterprises from different fields.