Attributes in accounting refer to the qualitative characteristics of financial information that make it useful for decision-making. These attributes help to ensure that financial information is reliable, relevant, comparable and understandable by users.

Qualitative Characteristics

Qualitative characteristics are attributes of financial information that are not capable of being measured in monetary terms. They help to enhance the usefulness of financial information by making it more understandable, relevant and reliable. The two main qualitative characteristics are:

1. Relevance: Information is relevant if it has the potential to influence the economic decisions of users. Relevant information should be timely, accurate, and have predictive or feedback value.

2. Faithful representation: Information is said to have faithful representation if it represents economic phenomena in a complete, neutral, and free from error manner. This means that information should be complete, accurate, and unbiased.

Other Qualitative Characteristics

Other qualitative characteristics of financial information include:

1. Comparability: Information should be presented in a manner that allows users to compare it with other information. This means using consistent methods of measurement and presentation.

2. Verifiability: Information should be capable of being verified by independent parties, such as auditors. This helps to increase the reliability of financial information.

3. Understandability: Information should be presented in a manner that is understandable by users who have a reasonable knowledge of business and economic activities.

4. Timeliness: Information should be available in a timely manner to be useful to users.

Conclusion

In conclusion, attributes in accounting refer to the qualitative characteristics of financial information that help to make it useful for decision-making. These attributes include relevance, faithful representation, comparability, verifiability, understandability, and timeliness. These characteristics help to ensure that financial information is reliable, relevant, comparable and understandable by users.