A comparative investigation of the qualitative features of financial reports on accrual accounting basis and cash accounting basis in universities of medical sciences of Iran.

In cash accounting basis، revenue are recorded during the period they are received، and expenses are recorded in the period in which they are actually paid. In accrual accounting basis، revenue and expenses are recorded when they are incurred. In Iran، the public sector uses cash basis in financial reporting which is not capable to compute cost of services and to do performance based budgeting. Therefore، universities of medical sciences of Iran used accrual accounting basis since 2005. The present study investigates information quality of financial reports provided in universities of medical sciences of Iran، as a comparison between accrual basis and cash basis. Sampling includes 150 financial managers and experts in universities of medical sciences of Iran at 2013. Research data have been collected by means of questionnaire containing 29 proposition 7-item Likert scale. Descriptive Kolmogorov and SMIRNOV tests were used to check normality of data distribution and also T test and variance analysis «ANOVA» were used. Results showed that there is a significant difference between prepared information from accrual and cash basis in some qualitative characteristics such as relevance، honesty، understadability، timeliness، comparability، traceability، predictability and validity.