Step 4: Evaluate the Quality of Disclosure
Managers can make it more or less easy for an analyst to assess the firm’s accounting quality and to use its financial statements to understand business reality. While accounting rules require a certain amount of minimum disclosure, managers have considerable choice in the matter. Disclosure quality, therefore, is an important dimension of a firm’s accounting quality. In assessing a firm’s disclosure quality, an analyst could ask the following questions:
- Does the company provide adequate disclosures to assess the firm’s business strategy and its economic consequences? For example, some firms use the Letter to the Shareholders in their annual report to clearly lay out the firm’s industry conditions, its competitive position, and management’s plans for the future. Others use the Letter to puff up the firm’s financial performance and gloss over any competitive difficulties the firm might be facing.
- Do the footnotes adequately explain the key accounting policies and assumptions and their logic? For example, if a firm’s revenue and expense recognition policies differ from industry norms, the firm can explain its choices in a footnote. Similarly, when there are significant changes in a firm’s policies, footnotes can be used to disclose the reasons.
- Does the firm adequately explain its current performance? The Management Discussion and Analysis section of the firm’s annual report provides an opportunity to help analysts understand the reasons behind the firm’s performance changes. Some firms use this section to link financial performance to business conditions. For example, if profit margins went down in a period, was it because of price competition or because of increases in manufacturing costs? If the selling and general administrative expenses went up, was it because the firm is investing in a differentiation strategy, or because unproductive overhead expenses were creeping up?
- If accounting rules and conventions restrict the firm from measuring its key success factors appropriately, does the firm provide adequate additional disclosure to help outsiders understand how these factors are being managed? For example, if a firm invests in product quality and customer service, accounting rules do not allow the management to capitalize these outlays, even when the future benefits are certain. The firm’s Management Discussion and Analysis can be used to highlight how these outlays are being managed and their performance consequences. For example, the firm can disclose physical indexes of defect rates and customer satisfaction so that outsiders can assess the progress being made in these areas and the future cash flow consequences of these actions.
- If a firm is in multiple business segments, what is the quality of segment disclosure? Some firms provide excellent discussion of their performance by product segments and geographic segments. Others lump many different businesses into one broad segment. The level of competition in an industry and management’s willingness to share desegregated performance data influence a firm’s quality of segment disclosure.
- How forthcoming is the management with respect to bad news? A firm’s disclosure quality is most clearly revealed by the way management deals with bad news. Does it adequately explain the reasons for poor performance? Does the company clearly articulate its strategy, if any, to address the company’s performance problems?
- How good is the firm’s investor relations program? Does the firm provide fact books with detailed data on the firm’s business and performance? Is the management accessible to analysts?