ACCA ICAEW Financial Accounting and Reporting Practice Exam 2026 – Your Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

Enhancing qualitative aspects of financial information refers to additional characteristics that improve the usefulness of financial reports beyond the fundamental qualities of relevance and faithful representation. While relevance, faithful representation, and reliability are considered fundamental characteristics, the enhancing qualitative characteristics include comparability, verifiability, timeliness, and understandability.

In this context, focusing on relevance as a non-characteristic is valid because relevance itself is a fundamental characteristic rather than an enhancing one. Relevance involves ensuring that the information provided in financial statements can influence the decisions of users by helping them assess past, present, or future events. It is inherently about the nature of the information being reported rather than an enhancement to its presentation or characteristics.

The correct choice correctly identifies that relevance is not part of the enhancing qualitative characteristics, as it is foundational to the quality of financial information itself. Comparability, cost vs benefit, and verifiability, on the other hand, are all aspects that help enhance the qualitative nature of financial reports, making them more effective for users in comparing and understanding financial statements across different entities or periods.