Research On Conceptual Framework Of Financial Accounting

Conceptual framework of financial accounting (CF) has become the core of financial accounting theory studies. In the international accounting field, the thought of taking the rigorously defined and inner consistent CF as the theoretical basis to the formulation of accounting standards has been taken root among the people. Nowadays, China is at a crucial period of accounting reform, eagerly needing a mature CF to guide the revision and formulation of accounting standards. In February 2006, China revised the basic accounting standard, which made an important step toward the conceptual framework formulation and the participation into international accounting coordination. However, because of the overall thinking, inner logic relations and forms of expression etc, this CF is not yet mature, and a real sense of CF has not been established in China. Under this background, this paper continues to explore the design of CF in China, which not only has profound theoretical significance, but also has important practical meanings.The design of CF is a systematic project. This paper mainly adopts the standardized study method, and also uses the results of some empirical researches. In view of the accounting environment in China, and also to balance the feature of forward-looking and reality of CF, this paper brings up the "stage/level perspective" of CF formulation.Combined with the analysis of basic accounting standard, this article studies the CF formulation in China comprehensively from both theoretical and practical aspects.Firstly, this paper analyzes the basic content of CF, and the necessity and feasibility of establishing CF in China, besides that a vertical and horizontal contrastive study is conducted to investigate CF researches and formulations both at home and abroad.Then this paper analyzes following the logical order of "accounting objectives -- qualitative characteristics of accounting information—accounting elements—element recognition—element measurement ~ element report". For the accounting objectives, this paper believes that "accountability perspective" is a lower stage of "decision-making utility perspective", and proposes that it is the mixed compatibility character of accounting environment that decides the accounting objectives should possess the features of being staged, forward looking, level and diversity, succession, and impact. We believe that the "decision-making utility perspective" which contains "accountability perspective" is an ideal objective for us to pursue. For the qualitative characteristics of accounting information, we divide it into quality of content and information disclosure horizontally and divide it into overall quality characteristics, primary quality characteristics, secondary quality characteristics and specific quality characteristics, etc. in vertical, and then we reconstruct the relationship between "Relevance" and "Reliability". For the accounting elements, we re-instate the accounting elements, expand the scope of recognition of elements, promote fair value measurement and bring reports into CF.Finally, we bring forward that the CF in China should consider two levels /stages: one is the ideal CF (named as the "basic theoretical level"), it has the features of being forward-looking and theoretic; another is the feasible CF (named as "environmental theory level") which suits current situation in China and has the features of being realistic and workable. Based on these considerations, we chose the main body of establishment of China's CF, forms of expression, legal status, and implementation guarantee to explain the CF of "environmental theory level".