Abstract The article focuses on various aspects of accreditation of accounting curriculums and certified public accountant examination in the U.S. Referring to the standard reference book on higher education American Universities and Colleges, one find that accreditation is understood to comprise four stages including establishment of standards of criteria, inspection by competent authorities to determine whether an institution meets the established criteria, publication of a list of institutions that conform to the criteria and periodic reviews to ascertain whether accredited institutions continue to meet the criteria. To this framework should be added a recent development, or change in emphasis, that is, the reliance upon a pit-visitation self-analysis. The general trend has been that the accrediting bodies are placing less emphasis upon meeting quantitative standards and more upon voluntary improvement. Through self-analysis an institution is, therefore, able to set in motion steps to improve and meet the standards set up by the accrediting body.

Abstract As in any examination, the wrong attitude toward the Certified Public Accountants (CPA) examination often hampers the job of taking it and may actually affect the results. One result that an examining board does not want is 100 per cent penny accuracy. A Board of Examiners, as representatives of the profession, wants men who can think and make sound, effective judgments, though the final judgment or solution may not be 100 per cent accurate in terms of the arithmetic. A narrow, petty attention and an almost subservient consideration to details, is not the hallmark of a professional accountant. The examiner wants to know what the candidate knows about the principles of accounting and their applicability to the variety of situations to which he is being exposed in the CPA questions and problems. As the uniform CPA examination is geared to abilities of an average senior accountant, it is reasonable to conclude that most candidates who earn a baccalaureate degree in most colleges today will have the mental ability to pass the examination conducted by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Reviews the book "Handbook on Accounting, Statistics and Business Office Procedures for Hospitals: Uniform Hospital Statistics and Classification of Accounts."

Reviews the book "Cotton Textile Costs," 2nd ed.

Abstract The article presents a case history of a terminated, government fixed-price subcontract, it is hoped that someone may profit by another's experience. No suggestion should be read into these facts that this article is offered in a carping or deprecating way. On the contrary, one can only wonder at the stupendous task faced by the administrators of the Contract Settlement Act of 1944 and the perspicacity with which they have handled its very broad provisions. The businessmen of this country can rest easily, at least in respect to the thought that the U.S. Congress and those who have been given authority under the Act have "planned" to "facilitate maximum war production during the war, and to expedite reconversion from war production to civilian production as war conditions permit." The problem of reconversion was not handled quite so expeditiously during and after World War 1. The contract under consideration has only recently been settled, proper names will be omitted. Hereafter, the subcontractor will be referred to as Company X; the prime con-tractor as Company Y, and the contracting governmental agency as Agency Z.

Abstract The public accountant and the company auditor, for instance, and possibly the firm's bookkeeper, have a twofold task at the end of the fiscal period, that of preparing financial statements and that of analyzing them by means of ratios and percentages. These results, arranged in proper form, are then submitted to the executive, who upon comparison with figures for former periods calculates trends of income, cost, tendencies toward overexpansion, overtrading, and many other problems of business management. To begin, the credit grantor analyzes the figures submitted to him for credit extension primarily to learn something of the debt-paying power of his firm's prospective customers. He is concerned less, if at all, with fixed asset valuation and the possibilities of a cash settlement through insolvency proceedings. Consequently, his scrutiny is centered upon that portion of the balance sheet which will reveal to him the working capital condition of his prospective customers. After the credit grantor has segregated the current portion of the balance sheet from the fixed, it is advisable that the credit investigator evaluate roughly the prospective customer's itemized current assets and liabilities to determine their worth.

Abstract In the study of standard costs, the learner usually has difficulty in determining variances in the accounting for the elements of cost and in setting up entries to record these variances. Generally, less difficulty is encountered in computing and recording variances for direct materials and direct labor, where variances are usually considered to arise from two sources, price variations and quantity variations, than is encountered in computing and recording variances for manufacturing expenses, where variances are usually considered to arise from three sources, budget excess variation, idle capacity variation, and efficiency variation. This discussion will disregard the problems arising out of the handling of variances for direct materials and direct labor, it will present a method which has been used successfully by students in learning to determine and to record the three variances that arise in the handling of the manufacturing expenses. Since manufacturing expenses are entered at an applied rate, a difference will usually exist between the actual and the applied expenses at the end of the period. This difference is classified as over-or under-applied manufacturing expenses and is, in reality, a price variation.