Needs and Usage Patterns of Users of Small & Medium Enterprises' Financial Reports

With the introduction of accounting standards AASB 2010-2 and AASB 1053 in 2010, some Australian Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) are allowed reduced disclosure for general purpose Annual Financial statements.
A 2010-2011 Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia Research Grant titled "Standards setting for Australian Small and Medium-Sized Entities (SMEs): What are user requirements and how were users involved in the creation of the differential reporting standard?" funded Dr Sue Wright, Dr Elaine Evans and PhD candidate Karen Handley, all of the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Macquarie University, to investigate the needs of consumers of SME Annual Financial Reports, and whether these consumers were currently using what was being reported.  The questions were based on a previous European study.
A number of consumers were sourced through the professional Accounting bodies of Australia and over the period from December 2010 through March 2011, around 200 of these were surveyed anonymously through an online survey made available through the "Survey Monkey" online survey tool.  The survey included questions asking respondents to identify what aspects of the SME Financial reports were important to them, and why they wanted this information.  Results were exported from Survey Monkey into an Excel spreadsheet, and descriptive statistics were added.
This collection includes the Survey Questions, an Excel spreadsheet file containing Respondents' survey results and descriptive statistics, and two publications reporting the results of the research:
1. A report generated in response to an Australian government national enquiry
2. An article in an Australian accounting practitioners journal:
Handley. K (2010), Reporting for SMEs, The Charter (Magazine of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia), Vol. 81 No. 7, August, pp. 68-69.
Restrictions:
- The survey may be released under an open licence with Attribution/Credit required
- The Excel spreadsheet cannot be released due to the terms of the Macquarie University Ethics application, but the original CIs can analyse the data in response to specific research questions posed to them, and report on the results.
- The National Enquiry report terms of release are unknown
- The article is available via subscription to "The Charter"
Please note:
This collection relates to research undertaken by Karen Handley as part of her PhD candidature in the Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Macquarie University, and was conducted under the supervision of Dr Elaine Evans and Dr Sue Wright.   The PhD thesis is scheduled for submission in early 2013 under the title "" Accounting standards for Australian SMEs: Identifying, considering and incorporating the needs of users into financial statements".