Introduction of an Optimized Model for Fixed Assets Classification in the Balance Sheet (Case Study: Alimentary Production Corporations in Tehran Stock Exchange)

This research is an attempt to suggest a new financial statement analysis method. In this method, the value of accounting information in balance sheet is measured by information theory. Henry Thiel (1969), applying the information theory in accounting; offered a new thought in financial statement analysis. He measured the value of financial statement information by using entropy. Entropy is a logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language. In this research, we attempted to measure the value of information in alimentary corporations’ balance sheet by using entropy and suggested a new method for optimizing fixed assets classification, which increases the information value of those balance sheets. The results showed that if firms present fixed assets information by detail in the balance sheet, the entropy of information will increase and the high value of transmitted information will improve decision making by users of financial statements.