Telling It Like It Is.

The importance of voluntary disclosures is expected to increase because of the pace of change in the business environment. Companies can markedly improve business reporting by voluntarily disclosing more available information to interested institutional investors and shareholders. These include identifying factors important to the company's financial success, then specifying management's past and future plans and strategies for implementing, managing and measuring those factors.

These are key recommendations in a report, Improving Business Reporting: Insights Into Enhancing Voluntary Disclosures. The report stemmed from a two-year project supervised by a 14-member steering committee of FASB constituents, who guided the activities of a group representing preparers, financial statement users and the auditing and academic communities.

Company practices in eight industries were studied with the goal of helping to improve business reporting by providing evidence that many leading companies are making extensive voluntary disclosures. Examples provide useful ideas on how to describe and explain a company's investment potential.

The basic underlying premise of the Business Reporting Research Project is that improving disclosures makes the capital allocation process more efficient and reduces the average cost of capital.