Full Disclosure Principle - AccountingTools

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The Full Disclosure Principle

The full disclosure principle states that you should include in an entity's financial statements all information that would affect a reader's understanding of those statements. Your interpretation of this principle is highly judgmental, since the amount of information that can be provided is potentially massive. To reduce the amount of disclosure, it is customary to only disclose information about events that are likely to have a material impact on the entity's financial position or financial results.

This disclosure may include items that cannot yet be precisely quantified, such as the presence of a dispute with a government entity over a tax position, or the outcome of an existing lawsuit. Full disclosure also means that you should always report existing accounting policies, as well as any changes to those policies (such as changing an asset valuation method).

Several examples of full disclosure are:

The nature and justification of a change in accounting principle
The nature of a non-monetary transaction
The nature of a relationship with a related party with which the business has significant transaction volume
The amount of encumbered assets
The amount of material losses caused by the lower of cost or market rule
A description of any asset retirement obligations
The facts and circumstances causing goodwill impairment

You can include this information in a variety of places in the financial statements, such as within the line item description in the income statement or balance sheet, or in the accompanying disclosures.

Similar Terms

The full disclosure principle is also known as the disclosure principle.