Financial Reporting and the Accounting Expectations Gap

The overall goal of financial reporting is to provide high quality financial information regarding reporting entities that is useful for informed decision making. Considering most organizations have multiple groups of stakeholders which often have differing and competing informational needs, as well as expectations and desired outcomes, the accounting expectations gap has become a topic of current debate in many business circles. Historically, the accounting expectations gap has centered around the role of the auditor and audit responsibility. The financial accounting expectations gap encompasses what the preparers of the statements and auditors believe they should contain and includes what stakeholders believe the financial statements should contain. The purpose of this paper is to extend and apply existing literature to the financial reporting expectations gap and bridge the gap in between the two approaches. The conclusions, recommendations, and implications reached are generalizable and appropriate for use in developing best practice solutions