Ngozi Enterprises bought a stapler for ₦3,500 and debited it to office equipment account. The accountant later wrote it off as an expense in the same year, citing an accounting convention. The convention applied is

The materiality convention allows items of insignificant value to be treated as expenses rather than capitalised, since the cost of providing precise information would outweigh the benefit. A stapler costing ₦3,500 is immaterial relative to the size of the business and is therefore written off as an expense. This avoids unnecessary complexity in the financial statements.