Characteristics of the financial statments in Poland 

• Comprehensibility

A financial statement should be accessible to anyone who has knowledge of accounting. The information contained therein should be presented in a comprehensible and legible manner so as not to leave any room for different interpretations. Of course, this does not mean that the report has to contain only simple phrases, because in practice it is impossible, but an attempt should be made to stay away from unclear wording or ambiguous statements.

• Usability

A financial statement is not prepared just for the sake of it nor even to fulfil formal obligations, although the latter is undoubtedly important. A financial statement should, above all, be useful for any reader who attempts to draw practical conclusions and familiarize themselves with the financial situation of the company.

• Credibility

Objective, impartial, substantive – these are the characteristics that a properly prepared financial statement should have, with no place for inconsistencies, bending of facts or random presentation of data.

• Superiority of content over form

A financial statement should be specific and refer primarily to business events and reflect their economic and business realities.

• Accurate representation

The purpose of a financial statement is to present all business events in a manner consistent with reality so that they can be confirmed and verified by means of documents.

•  Conservative valuation

Appropriately prepared financial statements should contain a conservative valuation of assets and liabilities that corresponds to reality and that is neither excessive nor understated. In practice, such a conservative valuation approach often results in an underestimation of earnings due to the fact that it only recognizes certain revenues and, at the same time, potential liabilities.

• Comparability

The information contained in financial statements should be readily comparable to data from previous years. This enables the tracking of the economic development of the company from year to year.

• Continuity

The continuity of financial statements is based on applying the same rules for drawing up documents in subsequent years. Any changes to the reporting procedure should be clearly explained.

• Completeness

This rule requires that all data reflecting individual economic events are accounted for in the financial statements so that they are reliable and represent the real economic situation of the company.

• Verifiability

Properly drawn up financial statements should have their source in the accounting records, so that at any time it is possible to verify the compliance of the statements with the reality.