Disclosure of Critical Accounting Judgments and Key Sources of Estimation Uncertainty in the Financial Statements of Companies in Nigeria

This paper performs a thematic survey of published financial statements of 17 consumer goods companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to investigate their level of compliance with regulatory requirements regarding disclosure of critical accounting judgments and major sources of estimation uncertainties in their financial statements. High quality disclosures in this area enable users to assess the quality of managements accounting policy decisions and the likelihood of future changes in the amounts appearing in the financial statements in a way that generic disclosures do not. Data was collected from the annual reports and accounts of the sampled companies in the financial reporting year ended in 2017. Using descriptive statistics and content analysis, it was found that firms provide some disclosures, but the information is not sufficiently informative to give users meaningful insights. Overall, the level of disclosure fell short of the intentions of the relevant regulatory requirements. The findings suggest that in addition to the guidance in the IFRS illustrative examples, it may be necessary to train accountants and auditors in Nigeria on disclosing accounting critical judgments and key sources of estimation uncertainties in compliance with regulatory intentions and requirements thereby increasing the informational value of these disclosures in financial reports.